Unfinished Business
by northernexposure
Summary: Jenny can't let it rest. Nick/Claudia, Nick/Jenny. Now finished!
1. Chapter 1

Unfinished Business

Disclaimer: Owned by Impossible Pictures. No financial infringement intended.

Author's Note: Happy Valentine's Day, everyone, though this isn't really a Valentine's story… In fact it's possibly quite odd and silly.

It was one Sunday afternoon, in the post-prandial haze of a good roast lunch, that Jenny found herself thinking about Nick Cutter for the third time that day.

Mark was upstairs (he had a deadline for the paper on Monday morning, which was not unusual) and she'd curled up on the sofa with the latest issue of Cosmo and another glass of red wine. But after a while she'd found her attention wandering, eyes staring unfocused out into their neat, bordered garden. The first two times she shook herself and carried on reading. The third, she realised there was something in it.

Jenny wasn't one to ignore a problem. The earlier one tackled anything that was a potential issue, the better, as far as she concerned.

Not that Cutter had the potential to become an issue. Why would he?

And yet, he troubled her. True, they hadn't got off to a great start. He'd insisted she was someone else, and Jenny hadn't appreciated what she saw as his arrogance. But the thing about a good PR person – and Jenny was a _damn_ good PR person – is that being able to read people is a key skill. Jenny read Cutter as, above all, a good person. Annoying, headstrong, not great at dealing with authority and supremely disapproving of her… but a good person nonetheless. She could acknowledge that, even though in the normal course of events he wasn't the usual type of person she'd find herself in contact with.

At first she'd found him unsettling. She'd turn around and catch him staring at her, as if he expected to see someone else. And he kept calling her Claudia, which, was _God!_ an awful name. It sounded like something an old woman would call her cat.

But he'd stopped that now, even though every now and then she thought he had to catch himself to stop it slipping out. He'd called her it once too often and she'd snapped at him – _'Don't call me that!' _He hadn't done it since, and she appreciated his efforts.

Jenny didn't know what to make of the whole 'Claudia Brown' thing. Was she a figment of his imagination? It was a fine line between genius and insanity, after all. Maybe the unknown stresses of crossing into different time periods and discovering that his dead wife was alive had sent him over the edge? People went mad for less. But he seemed to be holding it together well enough in all other respects.

Jenny let the magazine slide on to the floor and curled her legs beneath her, taking another mouthful of wine. Once he'd stopped calling her Claudia, things had become a little easier between them. She'd still catch him watching her every now and then, usually with a surprised look on his face. Which was odd, since they didn't know each other. How could a stranger surprise you? But in any case, he seemed to have softened toward her recently, though she still knew next to nothing about him, personally at any rate.

Not that she needed to. Why would she?

But the fact that she was sitting here on a pleasant Sunday afternoon thinking about a man that she worked with meant that something was amiss. It wasn't attraction, though she was aware he was attractive. She loved Mark, she loved her life the way it was. But if he was occupying her thoughts like this, outside of work hours, then something, somewhere, was wrong.

She knew what it was. Unfinished business. Cutter had shown up on her doorstep unexpectedly, and before she'd even had a chance, out of pure politeness, to ask him in – he'd started talking. His eyes had skewered her, willing her to listen, and she'd been so surprised that she had, without a word. She'd gripped the half-open door and listened to him silently until Mark had interrupted. And Cutter had apologised, turned and walked away, without finishing what it was he'd wanted to tell her so urgently.

He'd never tried to finish what he'd been saying. He'd never asked for her attention at work or called her to one side in the field. And now she found herself thinking back to that night, wondering what it was he was trying to tell her. Or what he was trying to tell himself. Perhaps he'd found his answer, and that's why he'd never brought it up again.

But unfinished business, especially between work colleagues, was unhealthy. Something had to be done, she decided. Putting down her glass, she went upstairs to tell Mark she was popping out.

Nick was pottering around in his kitchen, eating a ham and cheese toastie, when the doorbell rang. He frowned, not expecting visitors, and stuffed the last bite of his lunch into his mouth, flicking the kettle on to boil before heading to the door. It was probably a Jehovah's Witness. The things he could set them straight about…

He was still chewing as he opened the door, and stopped dead.

Claudia Brown was standing on his step, long hair loose and glinting in the afternoon sunshine.

For a second he couldn't move. His brain did a back flip, trying to work it out. Had it all been a weird dream? Was the world back to his version of normal? Had he just drunk a bit too much last night?

She lifted a hand to push her hair behind her ear, and that's when he saw the engagement ring. He swallowed, with difficulty. Not Claudia, he told his hammering heart. Not Claudia. _Jenny_. Claudia doesn't exist.

But without make-up, without her hair tied back in the convoluted patterns she chose for work, it was hard to tell this woman apart from the one in his memory.

He realised he'd been staring, and silent, and should say something.

"Hi."

"Nick – hi." Jenny smiled, "Look, I'm sorry to bother you at home, and on a Sunday. If you're busy…" She half-turned, as if to leave.

"No. No, it's fine," he told her. "Sorry, I was just a bit surprised to see you. Come in."

Nick led her into the kitchen, which suddenly seemed less tidy than when he'd left it a few moments ago. Somehow he imagined Jenny's house to be as pristine and manicured as she herself was.

Not that he thought about her house. Why would he?

"I've just put the kettle on," he said, indicating a chair at the cluttered table. "Can I get you something?"

"Coffee would be lovely, thanks."

He watched her out of the corner of his eye as he made the drinks. She didn't sit, but wandered around the room instead, picking up books, artefacts, fingering the various and odd objects he had strewn around.

"Sorry about the mess," he muttered, and was rewarded by an unsettling smile that was so much more Claudia than Jenny. He was suddenly relieved that she looked so different at work.

"It's homely. I like it. This is a beautiful house."

He put the coffee on the table, and they sat opposite each other.

"So what's the problem?" he asked, "Has another anomaly appeared?"

She shook her head, and Nick forced himself to keep his eyes on his coffee to avoid noticing the ripple of her hair.

"Oh no, nothing like that. As far as I know everything's quiet at the Arc."

"So this isn't a work call?"

"No…" Jenny looked up at him over the rim of her mug, and grimaced. "This is… sorting out some unfinished business."

Nick raised an eyebrow. "Unfinished business?"

Jenny sighed, leaning back in her chair and fixing him with an assessing look.

"You came to my house one night, a few weeks ago. But you left before you had finished what you were saying."

Nick stood again, uncomfortable. "Oh, that. That was – nothing."

"I don't think it was nothing," Jenny insisted. "It was something. You found out where I lived, you'd rehearsed what you were going to say…"

"It doesn't matter," he interrupted, beginning to prowl the room. "Really. I'm sorry that I bothered you. I shouldn't have. And it's not something I'll bring up again. Things have just been… a bit odd for me recently."

Nick turned his back on her for a moment, her image too painful to countenance. He tapped something on the dresser, a tuneless beat, trying to get this under control. He'd thought he had it beat. And now she had to turn up here, looking so much like that other self she'd never know, and undo it all.

"Well, I want you to, Nick. I want you to carry on explaining what it was you were telling me. Something about… a change in the time line, and people turning out differently. It was about Claudia Brown, wasn't it?"

"Look," he said, "this is better left-"

"It's _not_ better left unsaid," she said firmly. "We work together. And at the moment we're not working together as well as we could be, because there's something hanging between us and I don't even know what it is. This woman whom you seem to think has some connection to me. So let's sort it out. Here and now, so I can go home and spend the evening in peace."

He had to smile at her directness, which was purely Jenny. But he shook his head.

"Cutter," she warned. "I'm not leaving until I get the answers I came for. I'm not spending another moment wondering about it, I just want you to explain it."

He turned and raised an eyebrow, and she at least had the good grace to flush slightly.

"Not that I spend a lot of time wondering," she added lamely.

"I thought you didn't want to know about Claudia Brown," he said, returning to the table.

"I've changed my mind."

"It's difficult. It's not – you might not like it."

"That didn't stop you trying to tell me about it before. What changed?

Nick shook his head. He knew what had changed, but how could he tell her? Her fiancé had suddenly appeared at her side, and that had changed everything. What could he say? What was the point? He'd gone to her house that night, wanting to rekindle what he'd so nearly had, and lost. Wanting to find it in her, this new Claudia.

But it wasn't there, he understood that now. He'd understood it from the moment he'd realised she was taken. So best to let it go. Why embarrass himself further?

"Claudia was just someone I used to know," he said softly. "And she looked a lot – _a lot_ – like you. That's all."

"But that's not all, is it?" She pressed. "There's all the time stuff. You were talking about people changing. About time changing. That's what you think has happened to Claudia. Isn't it?"

Nick looked down at his hands, gripping the coffee mug tightly and shaking his head.

"I remember what you said to me once," Jenny said, slowly and deliberately. "You said, _'I used to think you were quite something.' _But we don't know each other. So how could you have once thought that about me?"

"Look, Jenny…"

"It was her, wasn't it? You were talking about Claudia Brown. And you think that I was her in – I don't know – a parallel timeline, or something."

"No!" Nick said, slamming his hand down on the table and making her jump. "Not a parallel timeline. THIS timeline. THIS world. And what's the point? Huh? It's changed, it's different, and I can't change it back. Claudia's gone, she isn't here. I've accepted that. Just let me move on, okay?"

Jenny was silent for a moment, before she said. "If I could just find a way of believing you…"

Nick snorted. "Why? Why does that matter?"

"Because I don't like not understanding this!" she exclaimed hotly. This isn't just about you, Cutter. You've made it about me, too. And I want to understand. I don't like… I don't like not being in control."

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

Silence drifted between them. Nick watched as Jenny frowned into her mug. Maybe he'd been unfair. It must have been weird to have a guy insisting you were someone else as soon as you'd met. Calling you by a different name, babbling about changes in time. Jenny had had a lot to deal with in a short period of time.

"I can show you something," he said quietly. "But you might not want to see it."

"Does it involve me?" she asked immediately.

"It involves Claudia," he said carefully.

"Then I want to see."

"Are you sure? It might not-"

"Cutter! Just show me."

He nodded, standing up and leaving the room to get his wallet.

Jenny sighed, relieved to have a second to herself as Cutter left the room. The conversation had become a little intense. She drummed her fingers against her half-empty coffee mug, and wondered what he was going to bring her.

This encounter hadn't quite gone as planned. When she'd told Mark she had some work of her own to do, she'd not really actually considered the fact that she was going to turn up on Nick Cutter's doorstep unannounced. He'd stared at her as if transfixed, stock still, with a look of utter concentration on his face. She felt as if she'd been turned inside out and examined under a microscope. Yet another thing she didn't understand about this whole thing.

Trying not to speculate, she looked around the room again. Jenny had never been to this house before, but it seemed completely him. Oddly, she felt entirely comfortable in this space, surrounded by the collected and untidy ephemera of his life. She didn't know what half the things around her were, and couldn't in a million years imagine being able to live like this herself. But in his space, it seemed completely normal. Fitting, even. She couldn't imagine him anywhere else.

He was an odd man, with an odd house…

Suddenly she was impatient to be gone. She wanted to be back in her comfortable life, where she knew what was what. She wanted her glass of wine and Cosmopolitan, and Mark upstairs, typing.

There was a slight creak as his feet hit a loose floorboard. Cutter stood hesitantly in the doorway, holding his wallet in one hand and fingering something – a piece of paper – in the other.

"I'm still not sure this is a good idea," he muttered.

"Come on, Cutter," she said, some of her impatience colouring her tone. "Get on with it."

He blinked once, and then held out the object.

Jenny took it, and looked. Time seemed to stand still.

It was a photograph. It was a photograph of her – and of Cutter. They were standing next to each other. He was looking back over his shoulder, towards the camera, caught in a moment as he reached for her clasped hands.

"What is this?" Jenny whispered hoarsely. "Where did you get this? I don't remember…"

"It's not you," he said, so softly she almost missed it as he dropped back into his chair.

"But – it is me. Look at the picture. It's me. But I don't remember-"

"It's not you, Jenny. Or rather, it is you, but it's not… _this_ you. It's Claudia. It's Claudia Brown."

Jenny couldn't take her eyes off the woman in the photograph who looked so much like her. The hair, the eyes.

"I don't understand," Jenny said, looking up at him for the first time, and she knew the fear must show on her face. "I don't understand any of it."

"I know. It's hard. I don't really understand it myself. But that's Claudia. She existed. She was – you."

Jenny glanced up. Cutter's hand still clutched his wallet on the table.

"This was in your wallet," she whispered. "Were you and she…? Were you…"

Cutter pinched his thumb and forefinger at the bridge of his nose.

"No. Not really. We weren't."

"Is that why you stare at me when you think I'm not looking? Because – what? You're looking for her. The woman you were-"

Cutter stood up again, abruptly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. But sometimes – just sometimes, it's so difficult. Like today. You are here. You're sitting there, and you're _her_."

"That's why you left," Jenny said, realisation dawning. "When Mark came to the door. You were hoping that-"

"No," he said again. "No, I wasn't hoping for anything. Claudia and I weren't together. I was just trying to work out-"

"But you keep a photograph of her in your wallet," she said again. "What was she to you?"

Nick looked away. "She was something," he muttered at last, "that's all. We were…. At the beginning of something. Maybe. I don't know."

"I'm sorry," she said, trying to keep her tone as even as possible. "I really am. But I'm not her. You know that, right?"

She pushed the photograph back across the table. His fingers caught the edge.

"I'm not her," Jenny repeated.

He nodded, staring between the photograph and her face. "I know that. You're poles apart. But still… You are her. In some ways, you _are_ her."

"I am Jennifer Lewis," she said, standing up. "I am NOT Claudia Brown." It was time to go. She had her answers, and it would take a while to digest them. She wanted to be at home, where she belonged. Where she was comfortable. Not in this house, with this man who saw her as someone else, who wanted her to be someone else.

"I know," Cutter said softly, standing up. "I know. I just – I just need to find a way to let go. I need… what's that crass term the American's use? Closure." He laughed slightly, grimly. "Trust me, that's pretty hard to find when you're around. Every time I see you, I see her. And I see you every day."

Jenny nodded, heart softening. "I'm sorry, I really am."

He smiled. "I know. You're not so bad, underneath it all, Jenny Lewis."

She smiled back. "I wish I could help you find your closure," she said, as they moved towards the front door.

"I think you're the last person who can help with that."

Jenny stopped, an idea occurring to her. It was a crazy idea, and yet – she was curious. She couldn't imagine herself with this Indiana-Jones type. She couldn't imagine a reality where she would find him attractive, with his untidy house and his perpetual stubble. And she knew she was safe - she had Mark waiting for her at home, Mark, whom she loved dearly despite his mother.

Maybe she could break her spell over Nick Cutter. Maybe she could show him once and for all that she wasn't Claudia Brown.

"Jenny?" he frowned, "What's the matter?"

"Maybe I can help you," she told him. "Did you kiss her?"

"What?"

"Claudia. You and Claudia. Did you kiss?"

"Um…" he looked uncomfortable, and moved to the door.

She crossed her arms and stayed where she was.

"Yes," he admitted, "We did. But don't worry," he added hurriedly, "I don't stand around thinking about kissing you…"

"Right. Because we're different people."

"I don't…" he began, obviously confused.

"It's always in the kiss, Nick. For example, I'd know Mark's kiss even if I were blindfolded."

"Well, he is your fiancé," Cutter muttered, staring at his feet.

"So kiss me."

His eyes flew up to meet hers, wide with shock.

"Excuse me?"

"Kiss me. It'll be closure. I guarantee you'll know I'm not Claudia Brown if you do."

"I really don't think that's a good idea."

"Why? You don't think I can stop at a kiss?" She raised an eyebrow. "Trust me, Nick, you're completely safe on that score. You're really not my type."

"Right. Thanks…"

He stayed by the door, wary.

"Last chance, Nick. I'm not going through this again. So if you want to know – if you really want to be sure that I'm not her, you'd better make up your mind. Right now."

"This is ridiculous," he argued.

"Yes. Yes, it is. But this whole thing is ridiculous. And I want out of it. This is as much for me as it is for you, Nick. I want you to know I'm not her."

He met her eyes, and nodded slowly. "Fair enough," he said at last.

"Right. Come on then."

"You're not exactly setting the mood, here."

"This isn't a romantic thing, Nick. It's… unfinished business."

His eyes crinkled at that, as he moved towards her. "Okay. Here goes. Ready?"

Jenny shut her eyes and waited. Okay, so this really wasn't what she'd expected to be doing this quiet Sunday afternoon – leaning against a wall in a strange hallway, waiting for someone other than Mark to lay one on her. But needs must. It'd be over in a flash, and then life could get on as normal.

She felt his hands first, brushing away the hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. They moved to cup her face, gently, slowly, thumbs brushing her cheek bones. Despite herself, Jenny felt her pulse quicken. She could feel the warmth of his body just inches from her own, could feel his breath on her face as he leaned in to brush his lips against hers.

It was when their lips met that Jenny first knew that this was a _really_, really bad idea, and by then it was too late. Her heart burst its banks with beating as he moved his lips slowly, gently over hers – hesitant, cautious, and she realised with a shock that that wasn't what she wanted. An explosion reverberated in the pit of her stomach, and she felt her body turn to jelly. She wanted to feel him, to really feel him. But what – what –

Involuntarily, caught up in this disastrous second, she parted her lips, catching his between her own. He made a sound in his throat, surprised, but he didn't break the kiss, and for the life of her she couldn't. The contact deepened as the moment washed over them like a tide breaking on the shore. His hands still held her face, and she clutched his top, pulling him closer, winding her hand behind his back, pulling at his t-shirt to slide her hand across his skin…

He wrenched himself away, abruptly, letting go of her and stumbling backwards to lean against the opposite wall. She stood, trembling, trying to catch her breath. He gaze roved from his feet, to the carpet, to the front door – to anywhere but her face.

Jenny swallowed. What the hell was that? What had just happened?

"Um…" she said, finally, when she felt able to speak. "Okay, perhaps that wasn't such a good idea."

He nodded dumbly.

"I should –" she indicated the door. "I should go…"

"Yeah," he whispered hoarsely. "You should. Please."

She ran to the door and through it, pulling it shut behind her without looking back. Then she started walking, and didn't stop until the late evening sunshine began to disappear behind the houses. Her cell phone jangled in her pocket, and Jenny knew it was Mark, worried that she'd been gone so long. She didn't answer it.

The light began to leech from the sky, and with it was bleeding all her certainties. Nick Cutter thought she was someone else. Was it Claudia he'd been thinking of as he kissed her? Would it be Claudia he saw tomorrow morning when they both arrived at work?

She wasn't Claudia Brown. She was Jenny Lewis, and she was engaged to be married to a decent, successful man.

She did not want to be Claudia Brown…

… she _didn't_.

[END


	2. Chapter 2

Author's notes: Deleted and reposted this as something weird was happening with the formatting.

I've got far along with this now that I think I will actually finish it, so I thought I'd start posting it here. I've posted it elsewhere as 'Distant Shores', but I thought I'd just post it as more chapters of 'Unfinished Business'.

xxx

Nick walked towards the ARC building with a familiar sense of dull dread. It had been lurking in his stomach for the past two weeks, ever since the Sunday that Jenny Lewis had seen fit to tear up her manual of good sense and turn up on his doorstep.

He should never have let her in. He should have shut the door in her face the moment he'd seen her, that frozen moment when, just for a split second, he'd thought she was Claudia.

But he hadn't, he'd flung his door wide and welcomed her into his home, and that had only been his first mistake. He'd listened to her. He'd trusted her.

Idiot!

Now, no matter how hard he tried to stamp down on the echoes of those strange, confused moments, he couldn't. And he was _angry_. So, so, angry. How dare she? How dare she wear that face, how dare she blithely saunter into his life and play havoc with it as if it were nothing?

They'd hardly exchanged two words since that day, and Nick knew that people were beginning to notice the growing animosity between them. But he couldn't help it – he couldn't bring himself to look at her, let alone hold a civilised conversation. He just wanted her to vanish back to whatever hell-hole had spawned her, to quit, to leave his life for good.

She'd said he'd know she wasn't Claudia, and by god that was true. But instead of opening his eyes, now his memories of Claudia were tainted with an illicit memory of Jenny. Jenny, leaning against the wall of his darkened hallway with her eyes shut. Jenny, pulling at his shirt, Jenny's hand brushing the naked skin at the small of his back…

Ending the kiss should not have been that difficult. He'd known the second their lips met that she was right, she wasn't Claudia. But for some reason that he refused to contemplate, he hadn't broken their contact straight away. And then she'd reeled him in, and for one sickening moment he'd been truly caught.

He hated himself for it.

He hated her even more.

She wasn't Claudia. She just looked like her. How could he be so fickle? And Jesus, he'd known Jenny was tough, but how could even she be that cold – to play him like some game? Why had she done it? For fun? Had she wanted to prove to herself she still 'had it' before she settled down with her cut-glass fiancé?

The thing that really,_ really_ riled him was that here he was, tearing himself apart over 30 seconds of his life, and it looked as if the same 30 seconds had barely registered on her radar. She'd walked into work on Monday morning and looked him in the eye, as brazen as you like. Not a hint of reaction did he see on her face. It was just business as usual, as if it had never happened.

Nick paused for a moment, taking a deep breath before stepping into the sterile, regulated air of the Anomaly Research Centre.

He could deal with this. He'd dealt with worse. To hell with Jenny Lewis. And he'd help her on her way if he could, so help him _god_.

xxx

Even from this distance, Jenny could see the tense set of Nick Cutter's shoulders. He stalked into the ARC as if going into battle, shoving the glass door back violently on its hinges. She flinched, gripping the handrail of the balcony until her knuckles turned white. He crossed the wide, empty foyer and disappeared from view without even glancing in her direction.

She should talk to him, she knew. They had to get this straightened out, because at the moment the air between them was so sour it choked her to be in a room with him. How could they continue to work together like this?

But for once, Jenny couldn't bring herself to broach a sticky subject, and it wasn't just because he cut her off every time she opened her mouth.

She was still trying to process it herself, that moment when the world had pitched sideways and flung her into confusion. What the hell had happened? How had it all turned so bad, so quickly? She still didn't understand.

But she recognised what the personal consequences of that kiss had been only too well, because her body kept reminding her. She kept dreaming of that moment his hands touched her face, kept feeling her fingers slide over his skin.

Jenny shut her eyes. How had this happened? The last two weeks had been utter hell. She'd gone home that night to find everything different. It was like an earthquake had shattered her foundations and some fundamental part of her life had been buried in the subsequent rubble.

Two weeks and one day ago Jenny had been happy. She'd been planning her wedding day, looking forward to a life with Mark. She'd revelled in his touch, in his simple conviction that they were supposed to be.

Two weeks ago, that had changed. She'd stepped through a mirror into bizarro-land where she had to stop herself flinching whenever Mark leaned in to kiss her. Where every little movement he made was resoundingly intrusive and stifling.

That Sunday night she'd lain awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to Mark's quiet breathing and just wanting to be alone. Just wanting silence, though she wasn't sure why. Her nerves had been humming, mind whirring as she thought about the next day. She'd have to face _him_, she'd have to stand in front of him and – what?

Her uncertainty had been crippling. More than that, her barely acknowledged hope was mortifying and unwanted, and she cut it off as suddenly as it bloomed. She wasn't some adolescent girl. Lives didn't turn on a single kiss. It was nothing, just a mistake. Jenny was about to commit herself to one man and the routine they had created for themselves for the rest of her life. There were bound to be a few wobbles as that became reality. Nick Cutter – well, he'd probably think no more of it. He'd probably forgotten the incident just as soon as she'd shut his door behind her. She'd arrive at work tomorrow and it would be like nothing had happened – because nothing had.

As it was, she'd walked into ARC and straight into a stony wall of silence. Cutter refused to meet her eye, or talk to her. His fury hit her like a wave, and she'd been washed away by it.

She'd known then that she had to match it with a flinty silence of her own. He'd never know what it had done to her, how it had shaken her to her very core. His disgust was palpable, floating on the air between them at every meeting. She wouldn't add to his distaste with a confession of weakness.

Jenny turned and headed back to her office. There was a briefing in half an hour and she had some notes to put together. She'd just have to hope that this burned itself out, and sooner rather than later, because she wasn't sure how much more of his unspoken rage she could take.

To be continued…


	3. Chapter 3

xx

Cutter looked up, a look of frozen surprise on his face. "The Ladder Hills?" It was the first thing he'd said since the briefing had begun.

Lester reviewed the file in front of him. "That's what it says, Cutter. You know it?"

The academic looked distracted, "Little bit, yeah."

"But the device hasn't alerted us to an anomaly in Scotland," Connor piped up. "And it's working fine, I know it is – I ran a diagnostic on it only yesterday."

"Don't be paranoid, Connor," said Abby. "Little defensive, aren't we?"

"It's possible that this creature came through before we had a way to detect new anomalies," said Jenny. "The locals have been reporting strange animal sightings in the area for months."

Lester glanced at his public relations manager, and was surprised to note the dark circles under her eyes. She usually looked so bright. Gleaming, even. "Yes, well," he said, "it is whisky country. Speaking from experience – one god awfully boring family holiday a couple of years ago – there's not much to do up there except drink the stuff in great quantities."

Jenny shook out the roll of paper she'd been holding – it was a thin newssheet entitled '_The Strathspey Herald.' _

"I don't think we can put this down to heavy drinking, can you?" she said, indicating the front page. A blurred photograph showed what seemed to be a background of rolling hills. It was impossible to make out anything specific – except something charging towards the camera, baring what looked disturbingly like teeth.

"Hoax?" he said, hopefully.

Jenny's reply was drowned out by Connor, who took the paper from her hand and looked at it in glee.

"Oh man, that is so _cool_!"

"That's one word for it," said Abby, peering over his shoulder. She touched her finger to the paper. "Is that a tail?"

"We're going to have to check it out, you know." This time it was Stephen Hart that spoke, addressing his words to Cutter. The Professor had resumed staring at his notes with no indication of interest in the conversation around him. To Lester, it seemed that Cutter's somewhat lackadaisical attitude had of late been replaced by petulance and irascibility. Yet another reason the man should go back to dealing with students and leave the important stuff to someone more reliable. The civil servant crossed his arms and waited impatiently for the Professor's response.

"The Ladder Hills aren't the most accessible area of the country," Cutter said. "It's not going to be a walk in the park to find anything up there, especially if it doesn't want to be found."

"We have to look."

"Yes, thanks, Stephen, for your valuable input." Cutter turned his gaze on Lester. "When do we leave?"

"Jenny?" Lester asked.

"We're booked on a flight to Inverness at 12.15."

Cutter didn't even acknowledge that she'd spoken. He simply stood up, glancing at his watch. "Abby, Connor, Stephen – let's get going. Lot of packing to do."

xx

Stephen caught up with Nick as he reached his office. Without waiting for an invite, he followed his former tutor inside and kicked the door shut behind him.

"Something I can do for you, Stephen?"

"Yeah. You can tell me why you're walking around like a bear with a sore head."

Cutter looked up with a steely look in his eye. "I'm sorry. Would the reasons you're looking for be including the affair you had with my wife, or not?"

Stephen sighed, leaning on the edge of Nick's desk and bowing his head.

"I thought we were getting past that."

"Did you, now? Sorry that the length of my memory disappoints you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to pack."

"It isn't just that, is it?" Stephen pressed. "This isn't just about Helen. This is something else. Come on, Cutter, I know you."

Nick picked up a black rucksack and began to shove items into it with sharp, angry movements.

"Just leave it, Stephen. Let's concentrate on the matter at hand, shall we?"

Stephen watched him for a while, saddened. They used to be friends. They used to be close. What had happened with Helen was so long ago, so far in the past. Yes, Stephen felt guilt – great, great guilt – over his actions, but it wasn't as if Nick and Helen's marriage had been perfect. Helen had talked about leaving Nick long before she'd taken a trip into the past, in a way that had made Stephen suspect that a split would have been mutual. But Cutter seemed to have forgotten that.

"You know what, Nick?" Stephen said bitterly, "Helen was right about one thing. You have a really convenient way of making your truth the only one that matters."

He left, leaving Cutter to his angry packing.

xx

Nick breathed a sigh as the aircraft banked over the ragged Inverness coastline, preparing for its final descent. The greenery of the landscape stretched out into the horizon, and he could already make out the purple of the hills, coloured by the ubiquitous heather than blanketed his homeland. Usually coming back to Scotland would bring a sense of peace, but not this time. This time, he was quite literally bringing his work home with him, and it was far, far too close for comfort. Closer than he'd so far let on to anyone in the team.

He felt someone slide into the empty seat beside him, and turned to see Jenny staring past him out of the window. He felt his jaw set immediately, and turned away.

"We'll need somewhere to stay," she said brusquely, with no indication that she was aware of his contempt. "I've got a car hired and it will be at the airport. According to the map, the closest town is Tomintoul."

"That's right."

"So you do know the area. Any information you can provide? If we're going to be tramping about the countryside it'd be nice to have somewhere that can provide a hot bath."

Nick looked at her then, lips curling, but not in a smile. "Book yourself into the Glen Avon hotel. I'm sure it won't quite be up to your standards, but it's the best the town has to offer."

Not a flicker. Nothing.

"Great," she said, making a note on her pad. "I'll call as soon as we're on the ground, see if they've got five rooms spare."

"One room," Nick corrected, turning to look at the runway coming into view.

"Sorry?"

"The rest of the team have accommodation," he told her. "So you just need the one room, for yourself."

He felt her go still beside him, but she didn't say a word. A moment later, she had gone.

In another twenty minutes they were walking towards a sign marked 'Lewis', held by a large Scot with a broad accent. He seemed surprised by Nick's own – evidently most of his business came from the English – and they chatted about this and that as he led them to their hire vehicle and had Jenny check it over before signing.

"I'll drive," Nick told Jenny as she reached for the keys. "I know where we're going."

She just shrugged slightly, and levered her case into the back of the car before climbing into the front passenger seat as the others clambered into the back.

"Everyone okay back there?" Nick asked over his shoulder.

"Not bad," said Connor appreciatively, "Not bad at all, in fact. Plenty of legroom. Better than Abby's tin can excuse for a car, anyway."

"Hey!" the young woman exclaimed, smacking him on the arm. "It's a classic!"

"Yeah, right," he muttered.

Abby ignored him, leaning between the seats as Cutter pulled out onto the highway. "So Professor – you know where we're going?"

"I do."

"Jenny says you've got accommodation sorted already. How'd you manage that?"

He slid a glance across the car, but Jenny was gazing out of the window, oblivious.

"I grew up on Speyside. In the Braes of Glenlivet, to be exact, which is about 20 minutes from Tomintoul and right under the Ladder Hills."

"Wow. What's it like?"

"Wild. Isolated. Beautiful."

"So you've got a house up there?" Stephen asked.

"Yeah. Used to be my Dad's. I rent it out most of the year, but it's empty now."

"And it's big enough for all of us?" Connor asked, "Wicked!"

Nick paused, gripping the steering wheel tighter. "For most of us," he amended.

In truth, Corrunich would house all of them quite comfortably, and a few more besides, but there was no way he was welcoming Jenny into another of his private spaces. The house held a special place in his heart – his family had been happy there, he'd spent so many idle summer evenings playing on the land around the Braes after school. It was an ancient place of wilds and ruins, and it was where he had first developed his love for the distant past. It was easy to imagine a time when huge creatures roamed the Earth when you were surrounded by an expanse so empty and yet so fertile.

He couldn't imagine Jenny there, and he didn't want to. Anyway, she'd probably hate it. The landline was intermittent and there was no chance of getting a mobile signal. The water had to be heated manually, a freak snowstorm would mean being stranded for days and there were always a few days in every year that the electricity supply went down. He doubted she'd have the appropriate footwear. _She'll be happier in the village_, he convinced himself. And he'd certainly be happier without seeing her face at every turn.

xx

Jenny listened as the conversation around her burbled and span, but her attention was elsewhere. Out of the car window she saw hillsides and mountains streaming past, beautiful enough to take her breath away. This was where Nick had grown up. This is the place that had shaped his early days.

She shook herself, annoyed at her train of thought. One kiss and she'd lost her reason. Nick Cutter had made it amply clear that he despised her, and Jenny wasn't one to stay where she wasn't wanted. So what if he'd cut her to the quick with the announcement that she wasn't welcome to join the rest of his team at his family home? It was probably some rustic shack that she'd hate anyway. At least the Glen Avon would have a bar. Or at least, she hoped to god it would. Surely they wouldn't be so far away from civilisation?

If there was one thing she needed right now, at – she checked her watch – 4 o'clock, it was a drink. She prayed that they were near their destination. Once they'd dropped her off and headed into the sunset she'd be able to collect her thoughts and relax. She'd call Mark and apologise for the brush off she gave him this morning. He'd suggested she could have given him more warning that she was going to go away, and she'd suggested that the next time he had a sudden urge to follow a story to Uzbekistan he could do the same. He'd looked surprised at her response, unused to her talking back. It was readily acknowledged in their household and amongst their friends and family that Mark's job was the important one. What Jenny did for a living was never the first question asked, and once people found out Mark's illustrious history in the newspaper business, she was generally forgotten about. Of course, since she'd joined the ARC that was just as well, but every now and then she felt like shouting, 'Hey! Remember me? Yeah well, guess what _I _did today…'

But of course she never would.

Xxx

To be continued…


	4. Chapter 4

Author's note: Corrunich is a real place. In reality it is owned by food writer Ghillie Basan, and also has a small cottage on the same site that can be rented for holidays, but I have conveniently erased it from the landscape for my purposes…

xx

By the time they pulled into the tiny square at Tomintoul, the sun was setting. Nick glanced at his watch – just after 5pm.

Pulling out a notepad, he scribbled down a number and held it out to Jenny. "This is my number at the house. You probably won't get through on any of our mobiles. Call us tomorrow once you've had a chance to talk to the locals."

"Right. Okay then." She took the paper without looking at him, and opened the door.

"Jenny," Abby's voice said from the back. "Are you going to be okay? I mean, if you want some company I could stay here too. Leave the boys to it."

Nick felt a very slight pang of guilt as Jenny actually seemed to consider Abby's offer before shaking her head with a smile.

"Thanks, but I'll be fine. I'll talk to you all tomorrow. Don't go getting eaten or anything. And if you do, make sure there are no cameras about."

She climbed out of the car, still avoiding Nick's eyes.

Stephen called after her. "Hang on a minute, I'll help you with your bag."

Nick watched in the wing mirror as Stephen lugged her case out of the back and walked with her into the small hotel. The door shut behind them.

"Professor," said Connor's voice, hesitantly.

"Yup?"

"Is everything… you know, is everything okay with you and Jenny?"

Nick didn't turn around but he heard the slap as Abby's hand hit the boy's arm. Connor was apparently undeterred.

"Ow! It's just – well, it's just you don't seem to be getting on to well."

"We get on just fine."

"Right. It's just- "

"Connor, give it a rest, okay?"

"Rest. Right. Got it."

Silence reigned until Stephen emerged again a few minutes later and climbed into the front seat.

"All set?" he asked.

Stephen nodded. "Now let's get to your place and get something to eat. I'm starving!"

xx

Whatever Abby had been expecting of the Professor's family home, this wasn't it.

"Oh my god," she breathed. "This is amazing."

She saw Cutter smile as they stopped to open a gate for the third time since they'd left the tarmac. After leaving Tomintoul they'd driven on roads that got progressively narrower until they'd reached a minute hamlet called Chapeltown. Too small even for a shop, it was a small collection of houses dominated by an incongruously beautiful Catholic church at one end and a distillery a little further on.

Abby had assumed that one of the homes in this cluster was their destination until they'd turned into a farmyard and headed straight for what seemed to be open country. Driving past the farm house, they'd rattled on up a rough dirt track, heading towards a dense forest of firs. At the last minute Nick had turned along another track that ran beside the plantation, which stood on one side of a wide valley mouth. The rich farmland stretched out in all directions. Ahead of them were low mountains that Nick had said were the Ladder Hills, swathed in the purple heather that grew everywhere. The mouth of the valley floor was intensely green, various hues making up a patchwork of vibrant colour. Beside the pastures there were stretches of land that were almost moor-like, pocked and dented with little hillocks of peat out of which sprouted long grasses. A few miles away Abby had just been able to make out a collection of ruins that looked older than anything else they'd encountered so far, and made a note to ask the Professor about them once they'd got settled.

Still they had continued to drive, clearing the last of the farm buildings, and Abby thought they might be driving forever. Everyone in the car had grown silent, an odd sense of unreality descending in this empty place. But as the twilight deepened enough for the first stars to prick into the velvet black of the clear night, they'd rounded a final curve and she'd been able to just make out a small collection of buildings at the end of the track.

The Professor climbed back into the driver's seat and pulled the car through the gate. This time it was Stephen that dived out to shut it behind them.

"If this was mine, I'd never leave," Abby muttered, watching as the sheep scattered lazily before their vehicle.

"Its a great place, but tough to live in full time," the Professor answered, as they pulled into the neatly kept gravel trap outside the house. "But one day I'll retire here and write more books."

"It's bigger than I expected," Connor said, looking up at the large square house.

"It's been added to over the years," said Cutter. "When the family first came here, it was just a stone shack, pretty much. We didn't have electricity or running water. I can remember going to school on a sled some days, as it was the only way out of the valley."

Abby stared up at the large, modern glass panel that split the house in two. Through it she could see a pine staircase, and bright artwork on the walls. It looked airy and welcoming, and together with the wooden deck on at the front that looked out over the valley, it seemed like paradise.

"Come on," said its owner. "Let's get inside and get some food on."

xx

Half an hour later, Nick was standing at the stove, heating a large pan for the pasta. He was glad he'd had the presence of mind to call up the woman who checked in on the house in his absence – she'd popped into warm it for their arrival, and dropped off a few groceries. Corrinuch wasn't the sort of place that Pizza Hut had on their delivery list.

Abby, Connor and Stephen were exploring the house – he'd told them to choose their own bedrooms – and he could hear them chatting as they came back down the stairs. Despite his current mental turmoil, Nick was feeling increasingly settled now that he was back home. This was where he belonged. Maybe he should just take a very early retirement and write those books he'd told Abby about. Let's face it, he'd had enough experiences over the last few months to turn out some pretty impressive science fiction novels.

There was a clatter of feet as the rest of his team trooped down the stairs and into the kitchen.

"This place is great, Nick," said Stephen, stealing a pinch of the cheese he'd just grated. "Thanks for letting us stay."

Nick glanced up at the younger man, and something unspoken passed between them - a tacit understanding that the ire of earlier in the day could be overlooked. Nick knew that the road to the recovery of their relationship would have more potholes along the way, but they'd get there. He smiled slightly. "You're welcome. This place is too big for one."

"It's pretty spacious, that's for sure," Abby flopped down in the sofa that was squashed into one corner. "In fact… I couldn't help but notice there's another spare room…"

"Aye, that's right." Nick opened one of the cupboards, pulling out a jar of pasta sauce and popping the lid.

"And this sofa is pretty comfortable too…"

"Yes. Yes, it is."

"Right. So…" She trailed off, and Nick saw her glance at Connor for support.

"So?" Nick said, tipping the sauce into another pan and flicking on the gas. "Your point is?"

"I dunno, Professor," Connor piped up. "We were just thinking – there's loads of room. For everyone."

"Yes, and here we all are."

"Not all of us," said Abby. "Jenny's all on her own and miserable back at that hotel."

"Jenny Lewis, miserable?" said Cutter, wincing at the bitterness he heard in his own voice. "She'll be as happy as a clam. I'm sure her sunny disposition is already lighting up the bar."

"Actually, I don't think she is that happy in general, really," said Abby quietly. "I know she acts all tough and gung-ho, but I get the impression she's quite lonely underneath it all. She told me her fiancé – Mark – is a journalist, and works away a lot."

Nick kept his attention on the task at hand. He was reminded of that conversation he'd had with Jenny after he'd saved her from the prehistoric shark – "_My fiancé isn't curious. Not about _my _work, anyway." _

"They're getting married though," Connor pointed out, "so she can't be that unhappy."

"Oh, I don't know," Stephen muttered, almost under his breath. "I've known some pretty unhappy marriages."

"Sometimes it's easier to stay, isn't it?" Abby continued. "Anyway, all I meant was that I feel sorry that she's not here with us. We've got plenty of room, and there she is in a hotel with no one to talk to or have dinner with – or breakfast. And who knows how long we'll be here. It seems mean."

Nick stopped stirring the sauce, laying the spoon down with a sigh.

"Look, she's better off where she is. How many locals is she going to be able to corner all the way out here? And she doesn't really strike me as the outdoors type. She can do her thing in town, we'll do ours out here – she can call us and let us know when she's bullied everyone into keeping their mouths shut while the rest of us deal with the anomaly, or whatever's going on. Okay? So that's it. End of discussion."

There was a brief silence.

"If you say so," Abby said at last.

"I do. I do say so, and you can now make yourself useful by laying the table. Go on, get. Stephen, grab some bowls out of that cupboard, would you? And that's another thing. I doubt my style of cooking is up to the standards of Miss Lewis' palate, either."

He turned to take the tableware from Stephen's outstretched hands and found the younger man watching him with one eyebrow raised.

"What?"

Stephen shook his head. "Nothing. Just didn't realise you disliked her that much, is all."

"Yeah well. When you've worked with a person for a while you begin to see what they're actually like." He began ladling hot pasta with rather more vehemence than was needed.

"Okay then," said Stephen, taking two of the bowls Nick handed out and heading for the table.

They settled down to their meal, and Nick turned the conversation towards the reason for their visit. Stephen asked about routes across the hills.

"I've got plenty of Ordinance survey maps," Nick told him, "I'll get them out once we've eaten and we can plan a few routes."

They took seats at the table. Nick was about to sit when he saw Abby's downcast face.

"What's the matter _now_?"

"Nothing, Professor."

"No, come on – out with it. Is this all about Jenny?"

"It just doesn't feel right," Abby muttered, "that's all."

"So you said."

"What you said, it does make sense," the girl continued, "you know, about her not being able to talk to the locals…"

"Right. So?"

"But that's not really the point, is it? I just – she's part of the team. She should be here. It's not like we're going to use the car to go up these mountains. She could drive back into town. I just don't like the thought of her being on her own."

Nick stared at the top of her blonde head for a few moments. "You're not going to let me forget this, are you?"

Abby looked up at him. "Nope," she said, completely deadpan.

He sighed, putting down his fork. He hadn't even got as far as sitting down. "Alright, alright," he said. "You win. I'll go and get her. But don't blame me if she starts moaning about not being able to do her job while she's here."

Abby bounced up from the table with a grin on her face. "I knew you had a soft side, Professor. I'll come with you."

"No, you stay and eat. No sense in wasting all this food. In fact, since you're so keen to have Jenny here, you can make up the extra bedroom. You'll find sheets and a duvet upstairs."

Stephen nodded at him with a smile. "Good call, Nick."

"Yeah, right." Cutter shook his head at his own weakness, and went to look for his keys. He'd just have to stay out of her way, that's all. Scotland was big enough for that…

xx

To be continued…


	5. Chapter 5

xx

Jenny sat at the hotel's bar, listening to the slightly tinny music playing in the background. She was the only customer in the room, and so there were plenty of free tables, but somehow to take one made her feel even more alone. She lifted her wine glass and took another mouthful. It was a pretty good Bordeaux, and she'd been surprised to find it on the wine list. She hoped they had a good supply – Jenny could see herself getting through quite a few bottles of the Glen Avon's stock. God only knew how many evenings she'd be spending in this exact spot.

She looked down at her phone, which rested on the bar beside a half-eaten packet of peanuts. Should she try Mark again? No, she'd tried him half an hour ago and got no reply, either at home or on his mobile. Perhaps he was avoiding her. It wouldn't be the first time. Jenny blinked and took yet another mouthful of wine, holding it in her mouth, feeling its body against her tongue.

"Can I get you something to eat, lass?"

Jenny looked up to see the hotel manager watching her with a questioning smile. He was a stout, middle-aged Scot named Kenny who had been trying to engage her in conversation ever since Jenny had arrived. She lifted the peanut packet and shook it, smiling a somewhat rueful smile back.

"No. These are fine, thanks."

"Oh, come on now," he said, moving behind the bar and stopping in front of her to lean on the counter. "That's not a proper meal. Have you ever had haggis? We've got a vegetarian version if you're that way inclined."

"Thanks, but the Bordeaux is meal enough."

Kenny nodded. "Everything okay for you upstairs, is it?"

Jenny was surprised by the question, but relieved to be able to answer honestly. "Yes. It's very comfortable."

"Good. We don't have many of your sort come this way, you see. I'm afraid we're not really geared up for it."

"My sort?" Jenny repeated with a frown.

"Well, you know – I expect you're used to the finer things in life, lass. You've just got that way about you. Here, we get the old folk in from London, and that's about it."

"The finer things? Is that how I come across?"

"Aye, but that's no bad thing, is it?"

Jenny stared at her wine, not so sure. Mark always accused her of being unapproachable. She thought that was a good thing, as far as her job was concerned anyway, but maybe it extended further than that. Looking up, she smiled.

"My room is lovely, Kenny. I'm sorry if I don't see to be enjoying myself. Travelling for business can be a bit – isolating."

"Aye, lass, I can imagine. Well, there's no need to be lonely here. You've always got me to talk to."

Jenny smiled again. "Well, if that's the case… what can you tell me about all these weird animal sightings that have been going on? Have you heard anything about them?"

Kenny shrugged, "Don't know much about it, to be honest with you. Probably some kids having a laugh, wanting to get their faces in the paper. Is that why you're here?"

"Yes. I'm from DEFRA," she told him, using the cover story they'd concocted for the team. "They've sent me up to investigate."

"Ach, it's all a load of codswallop if you ask me," said the manager, reaching out to pick up the wine bottle up and refill her glass.

The door to the bar opened, and she heard footsteps before a familiar voice said; "There's no point plying her with wine, Kenny, she's taken."

Jenny froze for a second, and then turned to see Nick Cutter striding across the room.

"Well, I never did!" Kenny exclaimed, "Nick Cutter! The prodigal son returns home, I see."

Nick reached her side and reached one hand over the bar to shake Kenny's hand.

"Kenny. It's been a long time."

"Aye, it has. What can I get you?"

"I'm not stopping – I'm staying up at the house. Just came to get Jenny."

He looked at her for the first time, a glance that didn't quite meet her eyes.

Kenny looked between them. "I see. Still the same old Cutter, eh? Always taking the pretty girl home."

"Jenny and I work together."

"Right… right."

Jenny still hadn't managed to say anything, trying to work out what Cutter's game was. What was he doing here? Had they found the anomaly already?

"Have you…" she cleared her throat. "Have you found something?"

Nick turned, meeting her gaze for the first time. He looked away again almost immediately. "No. No, not yet."

"Well then, what-"

"I'm just here to take you up to the house. We've found you another room, so you can stay with the team."

"You 'found' another-"

He cut her off. "Yes. I hope you didn't unpack."

"Well, actually, I-"

"I'll come and get your bag. It's a long drive back in the dark, we should go now. What room number are you?"

He was already walking towards the stairs as she said, "202, but… Wait a minute…"

Glancing at Kenny, she followed Nick, catching up with him on the first landing.

"Hey. Cutter. Cutter! What is this?"

He looked back at her but didn't stop. "It's been decided that it would be better for the team to stay together."

Her annoyance was beginning to turn to outright anger. They stopped outside her door and she faced him, crossing her arms.

"Come on, Jenny, it's getting late."

"I know it is, Nick. I know that, because I've just spent an hour sitting in the bar downstairs, on my own, staring at the clock."

"Well then, let's not waste any more time."

She stared at him. He refused to look at her. "You didn't want me at your house."

"Correction. I don't want you at my house. But it seems that the others think differently."

She paused, waiting for the unexpected pain in her heart to subside, before she said, very deliberately; "Thanks, but I'd rather stay here."

He looked at her then, narrowing his eyes. "I've just driven all the bloody way here to get you. If you think I'm leaving without you, you've got another thing coming. So unlock this door."

She didn't move. "I don't need to be where I'm not wanted, Cutter. So just head on back to your little homestead, alright?"

He took a step forward, his face angry. He looked as if he were about to shout at her, and she shut her eyes, taking a deep breath. When she opened them again he was staring at her, but his anger seemed to have retreated. There was something confusing in his eyes, something she didn't understand, and Jenny realised that the last time they'd been this close had been when it all fell apart. She stepped back, hurriedly.

Nick looked away, reaching up a hand to rub across his face. "Look," he said, his voice strained. "You have to understand. The house… my house… it's…" He shook his head. "Never mind. The others are right. You should be with us. With the team. And whatever… Well, everything else can just go on hold. Okay?"

It was the closest either of them had come to mentioning what had happened between them, and it stopped Jenny cold. After a moment she nodded, slowly dropping her arms and reaching into her pocket for the key to her room.

Put it all on hold. That was a good call.

"I haven't unpacked," she said quietly. "I'll just be a moment."

To be continued…

xx


	6. Chapter 6

Nick lay awake, staring at the sloping ceiling and listening to the birds waking up outside

xx

Nick lay awake, staring at the sloping ceiling and listening to the birds waking up outside. He'd been awake for hours – in truth he doubted he'd slept much at all. His mind was churning, his gut tight with unease.

Down the hall, Jenny slept. The knowledge rocked him, and yet it was such a little thing. _This_ is what he has been afraid of. _This_ is why he had not wanted her here. Because what really upset him, what really, really made his head spin, was the fact that in some weird, twisted way, it thrilled him. He'd even found himself wondering what she looked like in slumber. And the fact that she was only two rooms away meant that all he had to do was open a door to find out. It was too intimate, it was too uncomfortable, and he _hated_ it.

Claudia had never been here, and now when he saw that face in these rooms it would be Jenny's. Irrevocably, unarguably, Jenny's. And the worst thing was, he didn't mind as much as he really, really wanted to.

He'd hurt her, Nick knew. It had been cold and deliberate, because he wanted to push her away, to bury whatever it was her recklessness had dug up. But the more he hurt her the angrier he became, until the veil had been lifted and Nick had finally realised that it was himself he was enraged with, not Jenny.

Because he couldn't deal with this. He couldn't deal with her, and he couldn't deal with the memory of that troubled afternoon. Dealing with it would mean accepting it, and accepting it meant accepting her.

Accepting her would mean letting go, and he couldn't do that. He wasn't ready. He'd _never_ be ready.

But Jenny didn't deserve the anger he had levied in her direction. He'd realised that last night, when she'd stood there with her eyes closed in the face of his rage and he'd been instantly transported back to that last instant before he'd kissed her. That moment when he should have pulled back, but didn't.

He'd realised then that it had been as much his choice as hers, and the hell he had created was his alone. So what if he hadn't seen anything in her face the next day? What had he been expecting? She was engaged, for god's sake. Even if Cutter had wanted that kiss to mean something more than it did, how could it possibly have made an impression on her?

Nick had seen her intransigence as callousness, but it wasn't that. She hadn't felt anything because there wasn't anything for her to feel. It was as simple as that. This was his problem, and he had no right to expect anything from her. It wasn't as if he'd gone out of his way to make their relationship easy.

He sighed to himself. Now he'd have to find a way to apologise. Was it even possible, he wondered?

Somewhere in the quiet of the house, a floorboard creaked as someone crept downstairs. Rubbing a hand over his face, Nick slid out of bed. He felt like some coffee, anyway.

xx

Jenny breathed in, feeling the ice-cold air blast her throat. On the horizon, the pale blush of dawn was casting ribbons of colour into the sky. Around her, she could hear the sheep calling occasionally, and swallows darted to and fro amongst the grasses, snapping up bugs as they feasted on the dew. Behind her, the house was still dark. She'd come downstairs without turning on the lights, wanting to enjoy the peace alone and fearful of waking anyone else up.

Out here, it was as if she were the only human being on the planet. Jenny leant on the wide wooden rail of the veranda and sighed. There was no sound of traffic, no airplanes to taint the silence. No people walking past, no car horns, no blast of music from passing boom-boxes. Just peace and quiet. For the first time in days, she felt tranquil.

It was a stark contrast to the previous evening, when Cutter had turned up at her hotel. They had driven back to Corrunich in stiff silence. She'd still been angry, but hadn't fancied a shouting match in the confines of the car. But the more she thought about it, the more indignant she was becoming. She didn't deserve his rage. At first Jenny had felt contrite enough about her actions to take the blame entirely upon herself – the incident had happened because of her suggestion, after all – but now? Now she was getting tired of his silent rant. They were both adults. So they'd kissed, what's the big deal? He could have said no. He could have pulled away sooner. But he hadn't.

Standing there in the cold, cold air, Jenny let the memory wash over her again. The feel of him, the warmth of his body, so close. The tiniest touch of his tongue as she'd parted her lips…

Drawing a ragged breath, Jenny opened her eyes and laid a hand on her cheek. Even now the memory was hot enough to make her burn, and she wasn't imagining that he'd felt that heat too.

But then, maybe he'd been thinking of that other woman all the while. That woman whose face was all too familiar.

Jenny shivered, bare toes curling on the rough wood as the early morning chill finally got to her. She shouldn't be thinking about it. She was all but a married woman, after all, and he _was_ married, on paper at least. And if that were not enough, he appeared to be in love with a woman who didn't exist, and blamed Jenny for – for what? For being alive? For looking like _her_?

There was a sudden noise behind her as the glass door slid back. Jenny turned to see Nick, one foot on the veranda, holding two steaming mugs. She could smell the aroma of coffee drifting on the breeze. She turned back to the view, straightening her shoulders slightly. She didn't want to talk to him. She didn't want to see him. Part of her wished she'd just stayed at the Glen Avon.

Jenny had expected him to retreat back into the house once she'd turned her back on him, but he didn't. Instead, Nick elbowed the door shut behind him and walked slowly towards her.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked, balancing the drinks on the rail beside her. "You'll freeze."

"Enjoying the quiet," she said pointedly, but he didn't take the hint. Instead she felt something land on her shoulders and looked down to see he'd given her a soft white dressing gown. She looked at him in surprise, but as was so often the case these days, his gaze was elsewhere.

"It was Helen's," he muttered, by way of explanation. "Drink the coffee while it's hot."

Nick picked up one of the drinks, and then leant his elbows on the rail, staring out at the view. After a moment, Jenny gave up her scrutiny of him and did the same. They stood like that for a while, as the sun grew stronger, rising overhead into a flawless blue sky. The mountains turned from deep indigo to vibrant purple.

"I know…" Nick began, and then stopped. After another moment he tried again. "I know I'm not handling this well…" He trailed off again, staring down into his coffee.

Jenny raised an eyebrow. Was that all he was going to say? Well, damn him if he thought she was going to make it easy. She stayed silent, drinking her coffee and watching the birds cavort in the crystal air.

Nick obviously sensed her obstinacy, because she saw him nod slightly out of the corner of her eye. To his credit, he tried again.

"I told you before that it was difficult," he continued. "And now… now it's more so. Seeing you…"

She nodded, heart beating painfully. "I know. You see – her."

He paused for a moment, before shrugging. "It's not just… It's not just that, it's-"

The door opened behind them, Connor's cheerful voice penetrating the intensity of Nick's muttered words.

"Good morning! You two are up and about early! Stephen and I thought we were the only ones. Listen. Stephen's plotted this route that he thinks might be good to follow. Can you look at it, Professor? Only we want to get going. I'm getting a beep on the anomaly detector…"

Connor's bleating faded as Jenny tuned it out, turning back to the empty, peaceful horizon. She felt Nick move beside her, walking towards the house, and took another mouthful of coffee.

To be continued…


	7. Chapter 7

xx

The wind was bitter. It tore down the ragged hillside and snatched Stephen's breath as he turned to speak to Nick. They were climbing a steep valley side, a cleft hewn in the hills that plunged towards a small stream. The team moved in a line, track too narrow for them to walk side by side. Rain had fallen in the night and now water was cascading along cracks in the valley walls, rushing through narrow channels it had created over centuries. The sky was heavy and grey but perversely bright, and it struck Stephen as that sick, sparkling light that shines before the heavens give way to thunder. Stephen turned his head again and caught his breath before shouting to Cutter.

"There's a storm coming."

Nick nodded, "We should be okay for a couple more hours. We'll see the storm front rolling in once we reach the top. It's not much further."

"Does that explain the lack of fauna?" They hadn't seen a sheep, let alone anything else, since they'd left the rough track beyond Corrunich.

He saw Nick frown and knew that his worst fears were about to be confirmed. "No. This is as quiet as I've ever seen it. There should be sheep, hare, deer… even a few ptarmigan. This isn't right."

Stephen shrugged. "Guess something's been up here then. Couldn't be a human hunter that's scared them off?"

"I seriously doubt it," Nick shouted back as the wind ripped along the ridge with extra intensity. "There are plenty of easier places to bag a deer. You haven't spotted anything?"

"No tracks I don't recognise, yet at least."

He saw Nick nod again and turned his attention back to climbing the hill. They were, as Nick had said, nearing the top of the ridge that ran to their left, and Stephen expected the ground to open out. He'd never been in this area of the country before, but had done his research and knew it would be boggy. Difficult ground to follow tracks on, but at least they were in the right place. There weren't even any birds in the sky, and such an abandonment of the landscape could only mean that a new, dominant predator had moved into the area.

Across his back was strapped the stun gun, and his handgun was holstered against his hip. Stephen was glad of the protection they offered, though he was loath to use such measures. There was something niggling at his heart on this one, though… a bad feeling, a premonition of what was to come.

xx

"Connor! Watch where you're going, will you?"

Abby's voice penetrated the wind from behind him as Connor righted himself. It was the third time he'd lost his footing, attention on the anomaly detector rather than the wet ground. He couldn't help but be distracted – the detector was doing very strange things. He smacked it with the palm of his hand, but it didn't seem to make any difference. The blip still blinked in and out, as if the anomaly was appearing and disappearing frequently. Maybe it wasn't the equipment that was faulty. Maybe the anomaly really was that unstable.

They trekked on, and Connor was relieved to see they were almost at the top of the trail. It wasn't that he minded being outdoors – he just liked to take things a bit easy, that was all, and Stephen and Nick weren't the easy-taking type. Stephen looked like he had a demon in him, charging ahead, shoulders bunched against the vicious wind.

Connor stopped for a second, out of breath, and bent over with his hands on his knees. He felt Abby stop, and half-turned to look at her.

"Maybe you should do some fitness training," she suggested helpfully.

"I'm perfectly fit, thanks. It's just my fitness is all in my mind, you know? Quick witted, not quick footed."

Abby rolled her eyes. "Right, of course. You're right. It's certainly in your mind. Come on, Connor, I don't want to be a straggler. Let me go in front."

She pushed past him and carried on. He followed, determined to keep up.

xx

Nick gulped in the slashing air as he reached the top of the trail and was suddenly on open ground. Up here, the wind was even more violent, slicing across the empty hilltops and cutting through his all-weather jacket. The yellow light illuminated the hillside, bouncing off the slick wet grasses. He shielded his eyes and looked out at the view. The landscape was rolling in the word's fullest sense – behind them lay the steep incline they'd just climbed, and at the bottom the wide pastures that stretched, flat and vast in front of Corrunich, until they reached another mountain ridge to the North. Immediately before him was the marshy hilltop, pocked with pools of water held by the dense peat that underlay the entire area and made the Speyside whiskies so great. Beyond them plunged another hillside, less rocky than the trail they had just climbed, sloping down until it met two lesser hills that created another, greener cup in the Earth. To his left the hill dipped at a more leisurely pace, running clear and empty into more distant hills, beyond which lay the closest clachan, Badenyon.

He turned around, surveying his team before speaking to Connor.

"What have you got?"

"Dunno, Professor. I'm getting some really funny readings. It just keeps bleeping on and off."

"Is it faulty?"

"I don't think so. It's as if-"

Nick's cell phone rang and he reached for it. Up here, you got some of the clearest reception in Scotland, but he supposed that wasn't surprising. Nothing between you and the sky but rain. He looked at the screen, squinting in the light. It was Jenny.

"Cutter here."

"How's it going out there?"

"Cold, wet and windy. How about you?"

"Sitting in front of the Glen Avon's fire, just waiting for my fifth cup of tea of the day. Sorry," she said, not sounding as if she meant it in the least.

"Hmm. Have you got something for me, or were you just calling for a friendly chat?"

"Much as I miss the sound of your voice, Nick," she said, and he couldn't help but smile wryly. "This is purely business. I've just had an interesting call from the Home Office."

"Go on," Nick said, watching as Stephen signalled that he was going to move further into the marsh. Cutter nodded that he would follow, and then turned to Abby and Connor, pointing at his eyes and then at the ground. He didn't want one of them sinking knee-deep into one of the hidden pools. He turned his attention back to Jenny as they moved forward.

"They've had a head's up from the Air Force, would you believe," she was saying. "RAF Lossiemouth, to be precise. They run training flights over the Ladder Hills, apparently."

"That's right," Nick turned and glanced at the lush green valley he'd noticed earlier. He'd often seen fighters simulating bombing runs over that very spot. The aircraft would come out of nowhere, seemingly just feet above your head, the scream of the engine hitting you long seconds after the machine had already shot from your vision.

"Well, a couple of weeks ago a pilot reported seeing something odd. He described it as a weird reflective light source, near ground level but hanging in the air. He reported it because he didn't know what it was and nothing was coming up on his radar. He knew it was likely that it was below his radar range, but wanted to check there was no fault on his craft. Needless to say, the engineers found nothing wrong. His superiors put it down to a normal light reflection, but the pilot wasn't convinced. According to his flight report, and I quote 'It was too concentrated to be a reflection. I flew 360 degrees around it and it remained constant. It was fixed. It was real.'"

"And where was this?"

"About 15 miles out of Badenyon."

Nick looked back down the open slope towards the former clachan. "That's not far from where we are now. But Connor says he's getting strange readings from the detector. One minute it's there, the next minute it's gone."

"That could fit with the Air Force report – they sent out another training run a couple of days later with strict instructions to look out for this thing. Nothing. If it was the anomaly, it might have closed again."

"Okay," Nick rubbed a hand over his eyes, feeling the first spots of rain hit his face. "We'll start heading in that direction. Will you pick us up from Badenyon? I've got a feeling we're going to be pretty wet and miserable by the time we get there."

"Will do."

He hung up, dropping the phone back in his pocket and turning to signal Stephen that they needed to change direction. Instead he saw Connor and Abby waving at him from a little way ahead. They had made their way beyond the marsh, to where the ground opened onto little pockets of compact grey sand. Stephen was nowhere to be seen.

xx

To be continued…


	8. Chapter 8

Jenny hung up the phone and looked down at the fresh cup of hot tea that had arrived in front of her

Jenny hung up the phone and looked down at the fresh cup of hot tea that had arrived in front of her. Her heart slowed as she took a deep breath, and she shook her head. It had been a while since Jenny had been so emotionally invested in anything like her convoluted relationship with Nick Cutter, and she didn't like it one little bit. She felt out of control and vulnerable, which didn't suit her at all. But for some reason, and despite the open animosity she'd been trying to maintain, Jenny just couldn't stop herself reacting this way. It was irrational and annoying, but apparently unavoidable. At least he wasn't aware of it.

Her mind span back to their encounter on the deck outside his home. Nick had been trying to apologise, in a clumsy, ill-metered way, and even though she'd tried to stay aloof, Jenny had accepted it in mind, if not in words. She still thought he had a long way to go before he should be forgiven entirely… but she couldn't help but let go of at least some of the anger she'd harboured against him. If she was honest with herself she'd love to stay angry with him… she just didn't seem able to. There was something about him and drew her in, something that she didn't understand, and it was there even ignoring their encounter of two weeks previously. Jenny wasn't one to excuse her own behaviour, but looking back now something of the sort seemed inevitable. There was a thread between them, holding them taught, and right now… right here, Jenny didn't know if she wanted to break it.

Up there, at Corrunich, nothing seemed real. It was like stepping into a bubble that was protected from the rest of their stupid, twisted lives. At the house, Jenny had enjoyed the first peaceful night of sleep she'd had for days. She had an idea that Nick felt it too, perhaps not the peace, but the unreality of it all. And if he felt that, coupled with his hopeless attempt to say sorry… maybe he felt something else, too?

Jenny shook her head again, slapping down the notion immediately. That wasn't what she wanted, it really wasn't. And she wasn't going to risk finding out that it wasn't what HE wanted. _Just think about home, _she told herself. _Think about Mark, think about the wedding…_

She sighed and, finishing the tea in one gulp, stood up. It was time she got over to Badenyon and asked a few questions before meeting up with the team. The sooner they found out what was going on and put a stop to it, the better. That way they could all go home.

xx

Nick rushed towards Connor and Abby, sidestepping as many of the water pockets as he could. His heart was pounding. What had happened to Stephen? He'd only been distracted for a couple of moments…

By the time he reached the two younger members of his team he was out of breath and one foot was soaked.

"What is it?" He asked, "What-?"

Nick stopped as he saw Stephen a few feet away in one of the sandy dips hollowed out by the incessant wind. As he watched, his former student looked up and waved. Cutter bent over, hands on thighs as he caught his breath, and then looked up at Connor and Abby.

"What are you trying to do to me?" he demanded. "You scared me to death! I thought something had happened."

"Sorry, Professor," Connor apologised. "Stephen just saw something down there and was off. He told us to stay here."

"Aye, well, let's go and see what he's found, shall we?"

Walking on the sand was even more precarious than side-stepping the water in the marsh. It was wet and cloying, sucking their shoes in with each step they took.

"Stephen?" Nick called, "what have you got?"

Stephen looked up again, "See for yourself. I don't think this has been made by an indigenous species, do you?"

They crowded around the spot where Stephen was crouched. Sure enough, there was a track – just one, but it was big enough to send a shiver down Nick's spine.

"Definitely not indigenous…" he muttered, crouching too.

The print was easily a foot across, showing a long, tapered foot with five appendages, spread like a hand. At the end of each the print deepened, as if a claw had embedded itself in the sand as the creature walked. Nick glanced up, looking at the rocky outcrop that had protected the print from the elements and preserved it for them.

"Well," Connor said, "I guess that confirms that there's been an incursion."

"Yeah, but of what?" Abby asked. She knelt beside the print, spreading out her hand to measure the print between thumb and little finger.

Nick glanced at her, noting her troubled expression. "What is it?" He asked, "What have you seen?"

Abby shook her head, swiping her short hair from her eyes as she looked up with another frown. "I don't know… this just seems… familiar. It looks like a lizard print. Only, you know – huge."

Nick stood up, and addressed Connor as he said, "Anything in your database about giant lizards?"

"Not really my field, Professor," the boy joked. "You're better off asking David Ike about that sort of thing." Cutter's impatience must have shown, because Connor cleared his throat, and continued. "I don't know. Maybe. I can boot up and look - should get a good signal up here."

"Do it. Focus on the Triassic period."

Stephen stood up and raised his eyebrows. "You've got a theory?"

"Maybe. Let's hope I'm wrong, because if this is what I think it is, we're really in trouble."

xx

Jenny pulled up outside the farmhouse and checked her map. She was in the right place, it seemed – this was Badenyon, or at least, what was left of it. At one time it might have been a thriving farm community, but now there was only one home left.

As she got out, the front door opened and a young man of about 20 emerged.

"Are you lost?"

"No, I think I'm exactly where I meant to be." Jenny smiled her most disarming smile and held out a hand. "My name is Jenny Lewis. I work for DEFRA, and I'm investigating these reports of odd creatures."

The boy shook her hand briefly, eyes assessing her with mistrust.

"I'm Paul," he said, "Paul MacKenzie. This is my family's land. I'm the one that's seen it."

Bingo! She pulled the now rather dog-eared copy of _The Strathspey Herald_ out of her bag and held it up. "Did you take this picture, then?"

Paul nodded, pulling his jumper around him. He was clearly uncomfortable. "Aye, I did. Everyone says I faked it, but I didn't. It was up there, on the Hills."

"How close were you when you took this picture?"

Paul shrugged. "Dunno. 50 feet?"

"50 feet. Right," Jenny looked at the picture again. "And it was – dark, is that correct?"

"It wasn't dark, but the sun was setting."

"I see. Lots of shadows, then."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Nothing, Paul, nothing. Just trying to get an accurate idea of what circumstances surrounded the taking of this picture, that's all."

"The _circumstances_ were that that thing was out there, and I took a picture," Paul said, clearly annoyed. "Are you saying I made it up?"

"Not at all, Paul," Jenny soothed. "Just trying to get things straight in my head. Have you seen it again?"

He hesitated. "No, not exactly."

"Not exactly?"

"Well – I haven't, but someone else has. One of the farmhands that we get in to help with harvest. He saw it."

"Right. And did he see it before or after you told him about your own encounter?"

"After, but that's not-"

"Okay," Jenny said brightly, cutting him off. At least this would be easy to cover up, if there was actually something out there. "You're being a great help, Paul. Can you show me where you saw it?"

He hesitated again, something like a flash of fear passing his face. "You want me to take you?"

"Please," she smiled and blinked, and saw him flush slightly. Big eyes always caught them. "I won't be able to find it on my own, and I really need to see the original site."

The boy turned and looked up the hill. Clouds were circulating on the horizon. "There's a storm coming. Maybe we should wait a while…"

"I've got colleagues up there already – I'd like to meet them, if I can."

Paul's head snapped back, worry etched in his features as he met her eyes. For the first time, Jenny realised that he was actually genuinely scared, and not just about being called a hoaxer. A pulse of unease settled over he heart.

"They're out there?" he asked.

"Yes, but don't worry. I'm sure they can handle themselves. At DEFRA we're used to dealing with all sorts of animals, even feral ones."

Paul nodded, but was obviously unconvinced. "I don't think there's anyone alive that could deal with what I saw," he muttered.

xx

Abby squinted into the rain as it lashed along the hillside. The grass was slippery beneath her feet, slicked by the downpour and difficult to walk on. Beside her, Connor also watched his step, still staring into the anomaly detector.

The weather had rolled over them quickly, before they'd got even half way to the destination that the Professor had shown them on the map. The wind hadn't lessened during their descent, and now Abby's teeth were chattering with cold. She pulled her parker hood more tightly around her chin, but it didn't help much. At least they could see what they were heading for now, a cluster of buildings crouching low to the ground in the distance. It was the house they were heading for - but it was still a couple of miles away.

Stephen paused a few feet ahead, turning to offer her an encouraging smile.

"We're nearly there. Cutter says Jenny's going to bring the car."

"Great. Let's hope she's got a flask as well. I could murder a coffee."

Connor suddenly stopped, voice ringing out over the falling rain.

"Guys – stop! I think I've found it. It's here. It's right here!"

"You've found the anomaly?" Abby asked, pushing closer to look over his shoulder at the small device. It was emitting a resounding 'ping'.

"Yeah – it's back. Stronger this time, too."

"Where is it?" the professor asked, and Abby looked up at him to see his hair plastered flat in the rain. "When you say it's right here…"

"There – look!" Connor pointed over the older man's shoulder, down the hill in the direction they had been walking.

Sure enough, through the gloom, Abby could see a cacophony of light chiming against the grey.

"It wasn't there a moment ago," she said. "We would have seen it."

"It must have only just opened," the professor agreed. "Connor? It looks pretty strong to me. No sign of it fading."

"It's giving off a really strong magnetic field," Connor confirmed. "I reckon it's here to stay, at least for a while."

They all looked towards the anomaly, quiet for a moment. Abby shivered, overcome by the eeriness of the sight – the strange pastel hues of the anomaly clashed weirdly with the dark clouds squatting heavily around them. There was no sound but the constant patter of rain echoing in the void between them and it. She wondered what stood beyond that strange light, and whether it meant them any harm. A latent image of the picture in the Strathspey Herald, coupled with the memory of the print they'd found earlier, came to mind.

"It's right where we have to go," she observed quietly.

"Aye," said the professor, "it is." He glanced at her, "We'll be okay."

She nodded, pushing away the little niggle of fear in her gut. "Right. Come on then. Last one to the anomaly makes dinner tonight."

The professor grinned, patting her on the shoulder.

xx

Jenny was glad of her wet weather gear, but couldn't help but be disgruntled as she followed Paul into the driving rain. She'd hired a four-wheel drive, for god's sake. Why couldn't they have just brought that up here? Paul, however, had insisted they walk. There was no track, he'd told her, and he didn't want to damage the hillside. The environment was fragile enough as it was.

Trust her luck to run into a bloody environmentalist right now.

"Are you all right?" Paul shouted over his shoulder.

She looked up, but her attention was caught by a sudden glimpse of something some distance behind him. It cast a peculiar light against the hillside. Jenny cringed. It would be so much easier to cast Paul as a local nutter if he hadn't witnessed what he was about to see, but the anomaly was right there, in plain sight.

"I'm fine…" Biting the bullet, she nodded towards the fractured circle of light. "Have you seen that before?"

Paul turned and froze, a look of horror on his face.

"We should go back," he shouted over the rain, tugging at her arm.

"What's the matter?"

"If that's here, the creature can't be far away. We have to get back to the house. We'll be safe there…"

"So you have seen it before?"

"Yes, loads of times," he pulled at her arm again. "Come on…"

Jenny frowned, puzzled by his words. They'd had experiences of anomalies opening again every now and then, but Paul's report made it sound as if it happened here frequently. As far as Jenny was concerned, that was unusual behaviour for an anomaly.

Paul pulled at her again, but she shook him off. "I want to find my colleagues. Come on, we'll be fine."

"You don't know what you're talking about!" the boy said, frantic now.

Jenny pushed away from him and continued up the hill. She could understand the young man's fright – she herself had seen things lately that kept her awake at night – but she wasn't going to leave Cutter and the team out here alone. She didn't need to give Nick any more reasons to despise her.

"You go back," she called, wiping rain from her chin, "I can find my own way from here. I'll come and talk to you about all this later." Jenny didn't wait for a reply before continuing on her path.

The anomaly was still a few hundred feet away, glittering sickly. To Jenny it seemed that the sky had grown even darker since it had appeared, pressing down on the landscape with almost palpable weight. She felt a slight shiver of foreboding, but pushed it away. The last thing she needed now was to get the willies.

Putting her head down, she pushed on, alone.

To be continued…


	9. Chapter 9

xx

Nick didn't see it go. It was simply there one minute and gone the next. He stopped dead.

"The anomaly," Stephen exclaimed, "where is it?"

Connor slapped at the detector, which had fallen silent. "It's gone," he said, in a perplexed voice, "it's just gone."

The hillside was as empty as it had ever been, but more so. Cutter was jolted out of his confusion as he saw Abby shiver again. "Come on," he said, "Let's get out of here, quick as we can. I have a feeling it'll be back again."

Then, through the gloom, Cutter made out a lone figure fighting its way up the hillside. It was determinedly battling against the wind and rain as it made it's way on a path directly towards them.

"Hey – is that Jenny?" Abby asked. "I think it is – I recognise that jacket. She showed it to me before we left."

Cutter felt a flash of irritation rush through him, followed by something less definable. What was she doing out here, alone? He didn't want her here, it wasn't part of her job… What if there had still been something prehistoric on the hillside? Why did she always have to make things so complicated? He'd asked her to pick them up, for Christ's sake, not go traipsing about where she wasn't wanted…

They headed onwards, silently, Nick's brooding casting a pall over them all. He'd picked up his pace, slipping and sliding on the wet ground, shoulders tense and angry. He'd tried to put his uneasy relationship with Jenny underground for the sake of this trip, but it wasn't working. The more he tried not to think about it, the larger it all loomed in his mind.

When Cutter looked up again, there were scant feet between them. Jenny raised a hand and waved, and Nick was the only one that didn't return the gesture.

"Jenny," called Abby, jogging forward ahead of them, "what are you doing here? You should have stayed in the warm!"

"Thought you might need me," the woman called back, "I found the guy who took that picture – he lives at Badenyon-"

The anomaly reappeared as instantly as it had vanished, slicing into the sky like a thousand shards of glass. It flowered in the air between the two women, knocking a shocked Abby to the ground. She scrambled on the wet ground, trying to get up as Jenny rushed to her side.

The next moments seemed to happen in slow motion. Nick tried to run towards Abby and Jenny, but before either he, Stephen or Connor could reach them, something huge and vicious pushed through the portal. A head came first, reptilian, hard-jawed and full of teeth, eyes pulsing in the light from the anomaly. Jenny's attention was still focused on Abby. Nick tried to shout a warning, but his throat had closed up with a terror so absolute that all he could hear was the rushing of his own blood.

The creature was fully through the portal now, bi-pedal and long-snouted. It roared, and Jenny jumped, throwing back her hood to look up at it, mouth fixed in a long scream. Beside him, Stephen unshouldered his gun and took aim. Jenny tried to drag Abby away, arms under her shoulders, but gave up as the creature snapped at the girl's legs. Instead, Jenny threw herself across Abby, trying to shield the younger woman from the creature's snapping jaws.

Stephen fired, the shot just grazing the creature's flank but striking hard enough to distract it from the two women. It looked towards Stephen and roared in anger, but as he took aim again it turned and ran – not into the anomaly but towards the hills. Stephen took aim again, but the wind factor was so strong that he couldn't get a shot.

Stomach cartwheeling, Cutter reached Jenny's side and helped Abby up.

"Are you okay?" He asked them both, "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Abby managed, through teeth chattering with more than cold.

Nick looked at Jenny, reaching out to grasp her arm. She nodded, face blanched pale against the rain.

"Let's get off this bloody hillside while we're all still in one piece," Cutter rasped, heart still turning over in his chest. He put an arm around Abby, who was shaking in earnest now, obviously in shock, and began to lead her away.

A split-second later, Jenny screamed, and it turned him to ice. His head whipped around to see her hanging in mid-air, shoulder caught in the jaws of a second monster. It wasn't even fully out of the anomaly, it had just reached through and gripped her in its teeth. She struggled, crying out in fear and pain, but the creature held her fast.

"Shoot it," he yelled wildly, "For god's sake, Stephen – shoot it!"

Stephen shook his head, face anguished. "I can't – I'll hit her!"

Nick ran forward, reaching out with no clear idea of what to do. He just knew he couldn't let her go. There must be something, there must be something he could do…

Jenny screamed again, and this time Nick heard his name on her lips.

"Nick!" she cried out, and he could see the blood from her shoulder spattered across her cheek, "Don't leave me!"

But in a flash, she was gone. And then, even as Nick lunged towards the light, so too was the anomaly. It closed with a snap, taking Jenny with it.

xx

To be continued…


	10. Chapter 10

xx

Stephen saw the portal close, heard Abby cry out in horror and saw Cutter plunge towards it in a last-ditch attempt to follow Jenny into the past. But it was too late. He reached out, grabbing Nick and holding him upright as he stumbled.

"No…" Nick muttered, "No, she can't-"

"Cutter…" Stephen, stunned himself, shook his friend as he continued to struggle. "Nick! There's nothing we can do." Cutter's eye focused for a moment, staring at him.

"The anomaly," he said, voice somehow distant. "It'll open again. It's obviously been opening and closing for months. We just have to wait…"

Stephen shook his head. "We can't stay here until that happens. Abby's in shock, we're all cold and tired – and I've got to start tracking that creature as soon as possible."

"I'm not just going to walk away!"

"Cutter! There's no way-" Stephen cut himself off, unable to finish the sentence. There was no way Jenny was going to survive long on the other side of the anomaly. She was very likely already dead.

"We can't just leave her," cried Abby, tears staining her cheeks along with the incessant rain. "Jenny – oh god, Jenny!"

"I'm not going to leave her," Nick promised.

"Nick, you know-"

"Don't, Stephen. Okay? Just don't. You go. Take Abby and Connor with you. I'm going to wait."

"Cutter, don't be ridiculous! You're as cold and as tired as the rest of us. We've got no way of knowing when or if this anomaly will open again, or even if it will open in the same place. You need to get warm, you need a change of clothes and you need food. And we need to work out how to neutralise the very clear and present threat of a prehistoric predator at large out here!"

Cutter rubbed a hand across his face. "I'll be fine, and you can do the rest without me. Just go."

"Nick. You know as well as I do that _she's already dead_." Stephen let the words spill out, feeling the blank horror of them cut him to the bone. But he needed to shock Cutter into sense.

Something cold entered Nick's eyes as they stared at each other. Behind them, Abby suppressed a sob. Connor tentatively wrapped his arms about her.

"We'll know when the anomaly reopens," Stephen said then, still not releasing his grip on Nick. "We'll get the right equipment, we'll bring her back. But we can't stay here. We can't."

Cutter flicked his gaze away, surveying the hillside with weary eyes. "She's tough," he said quietly. "If anyone could survive…"

Stephen couldn't agree, at least not with Nick's hope. Under the circumstances, the longer Jenny survived, the more painful her last moments would be. He knew that if they found her, they'd be bringing her back for burial. Something else he wasn't going to give voice to right now. "So let's be ready for when the anomaly opens next. _Properly_ prepared. We can find out exactly what we're dealing with, for a start."

Cutter stared into the distance for another moment, before nodding slowly. "Connor," he said, "You make damn sure those batteries are charged, you hear me?"

Stephen finally let go of Nick and headed off down the hillside. The wind was dropping at last, but the rain still fell as heavily as ever. He took point, turning to make sure that the others were following. Nick, having made his decision, fell into step close behind.

Stephen's own mind was in turmoil. It had been a horrible sight, Jenny caught in the jaws of that creature, screaming for help that no one could give her. _You should have been able to take that shot,_ he admonished himself, _even if you'd injured her, it would have been better than the fate she's got now. _But what was done was done. Now he had to work out how to track and capture the first creature. It had looked more like a giant crocodile than anything else, and moved on two legs as fast as anything he'd ever seen. He hoped that Connor's database would be able to tell him more about what sort of predator they were facing. Stephen was beginning to suspect that these things had been using this corner of the timeline as a convenient larder – every time the portal opened, they could make a quick foray into a world that offered no rivals to whatever food source they came across. Something that size could easily grab a cow, dragging it back into it's own time to safely devour its prey. Stephen tried not to dwell too much on the images that provoked. Was Jenny suffering that same violent fate, right now and millions of years ago?

He was still thinking about strategies for tracking the creature when Connor gave a sudden shout.

"Professor – Stephen – look!"

As one they looked back up the hillside. The anomaly was back, glittering in the middle-distance.

A second later, Cutter sprang into action. Stephen tried to catch hold of him, but the professor was already running. "Nick, stop!" He shouted, following, "don't do it!"

"We don't know how long we've got," Nick shouted back, "It could close again at any minute – I've got to go now!"

Stephen caught up with him and succeeded in pulling him to a standstill. Cutter's face was a picture of steely determination. "I'm not going to be able to stop you, am I?" he asked, breathing hard.

Cutter shook his head. "Sorry. Not this time."

Stephen nodded. "All right. Then I'm coming with you."

"No," Cutter started to move again, but this time Stephen was at his side every step of the way. "Like you said, you've got some tracking to do."

"You'll never make it on your own."

Cutter paused before the anomaly, turning to him with a wry smile. "Oh ye of little faith…."

Stephen shook his head. "I can't let you do it."

"Let me?" Cutter raised an eyebrow, and made a quick gesture with his hand. "Come on, give me your gun."

"Nick…"

"Stephen. I'm not leaving her. Not this time. Not this one. I'm not losing anyone else to a damn quirk of the time line. Give me your gun, or I'm going without."

He wasn't going to be dissuaded. After a moment Stephen nodded and held out his weapon, pulling a few extra cartridges from his pocket. Nick checked and stashed it in his belt as Stephen watched.

"As soon as we've found this thing," he promised. "We'll come through."

"By then, I'll either be back, or the anomaly will have closed for good."

"Don't…"

"I'll be back, Stephen. We've still got things to talk about." Nick turned away, surveying the anomaly.

"Right," he grimaced. "Jenny wouldn't want this, you know. She wouldn't want you risking your life."

Nick turned to look him in the eye. "And if it was Helen? What then?"

Stephen didn't answer. There wasn't anything to say. He didn't envy Nick and what he was going to find on the other side of the anomaly. He'd never before suspected that his friend's animosity towards this woman hid something deeper, but suddenly it seemed obvious that whatever was going between them wasn't as clear cut as he'd assumed.

"See you when I get back."

And the next moment, he'd vanished from view.

Xx

To be continued…


	11. Chapter 11

xx

Nick dropped to a crouch. The air was humid, cloying, and beneath his heavy weather gear he could feel his t-shirt sticking to his skin. He dared not discard his jacket, though - there was no telling what he might need it for. He listened carefully, but the sound he'd been waiting for didn't come: he must have imagined it. He pushed on through the dense undergrowth.

He wasn't even sure that he was on the right track. Nick had come through the anomaly and found himself in an area of densely forested jungle. Huge roots poked out of the ground, lichen flowering along their lengths. The trees were massive, trunks pushing up towards the sky like the battlements of fortified towers. Their branches reached out to tangle together far above the ground, but even here on the ground, plant life flourished. There was flora everywhere; huge green leaves struggling to capture the few drops of light that fell through the canopy above, moss hung, fur-like, from gnarled branches above his head, and every now and then the bright burst of a flower peppered the patchwork of green.

Creatures scurried around his feet, the earth damp and in places even swampy. That meant his boots were wet through once again, but at least he'd seen the tracks leading away from the anomaly, pressing down over a multitude of others that had come and gone. It had to be the creature that had attacked Jenny.

He'd lost clear sight of the tracks soon after plunging into the undergrowth, and almost immediately found himself wishing Stephen was there. Nick had observed his young colleague on numerous hunts, but what he'd gleaned from observation could only get him so far in practice.

Nick's limbs were weary, heavier than ever in the draining heat. He forced himself onwards, squinting at the ground for any signs of the beast's tracks. One consolation was that there had been no sign of blood, or worse, anything that could resemble Jenny's remains. Despite Stephen's convictions that it was already too late, Nick harboured some hope. He had to find her. The image of her, hanging from the creature's great maw, calling his name, was haunting in the extreme.

It reminded Nick of someone else that had once worn that face, and no matter how much he tried to deny it, he couldn't quite divide the two. He could no more leave Jenny to a bloody fate than he could have abandoned Claudia. And he realised now that however achingly painful it was to have that face in front of him always, it could not compare to the desolation that had opened in him at the thought of never having it there again.

xx

Jenny tried to stop the bile from pumping into her mouth, but failed. Silently, she retched, emptying the contents of her gut onto the jungle floor. Stomach still heaving, she gulped in lungfuls of air, trying to catch her breath, trying to listen for any sign that she'd been heard. There was none, but Jenny knew she had to move, and fast. Any distance she'd managed to put between herself and her predator was now obliterated – her scent now clearly left to follow. Jenny might not be much of an outdoors person, but she wasn't stupid.

Dragging herself to her feet, she almost screamed from the pain as the motion pulled at her wounded shoulder. It was still bleeding, though she'd tried to stem the worst, fearful above all of giving herself away.

Stumbling into motion, the pain threatened another bout of nausea, but she forced herself to keep moving. Jenny knew she was going into shock – she was shivering uncontrollably now – but wasn't going to let her body give up on her. She'd fought to save her own life with every shred of fortitude she had, and wasn't going to give up and die now.

Come on, she told herself fiercely. Keep going. And just hope that you're going the right way…

Jenny knew that the anomaly had closed, cutting her off from her own time. She'd seen it happen through a haze as she was dragged backwards into the past, trapping her in a time as alien as another planet.

The creature hadn't stopped moving once it had reached home – instead, it had turned and charged into the jungle with her still firmly in its jaws. Pain had given way to panic as the undergrowth passed her by in a blur – how would she find her way back if she didn't know which way they had come? Despite the agony of her shoulder dulling her mind, Jenny focused on the idea of survival. If she let fear paralyze her, she'd be at the creature's feeding ground before she knew it, and then worse would follow. She'd briefly hallucinated the prospect of Nick and Stephen coming to her rescue, but knew she couldn't wait for that.

Never let it be said that Jenny Lewis couldn't look after herself if she needed to.

She'd been blacking out from the pain of the teeth tearing into her shoulder, seconds passing each time she zoned out, but had forced herself to twist enough to reach her pocket. Snapping open her little utility knife with one hand wasn't an easy prospect, and if she dropped it her only method of defence would be lost, but there was no other choice. Once she felt herself fading out, felt the tiny object threatening to slip from her hand as the pain overwhelmed her senses, but she forced herself to hold on to consciousness. After what seemed like an age, she had the blade open.

There was no point going for the hide, it was scaly and clearly too tough to penetrate with her little Swiss army knife. Instead she steeled herself and swung for one yellow eye, a ragged scream ripping from her lips as the movement macerated more of her shoulder blade. Her first effort was way off mark, and the struggle was exhausting: it also caught the creature's attention, and it shook her. She almost passed out right then, but forced herself into one last-ditch attempt. Kicking her legs, she reached out, and this time her blade found its quarry, plunging into the monster's eye. She felt the fluid pour warmly over her clenched fingers as it bellowed, a deep, raging sound borne of utter agony. It dropped her, stumbling, blood and gore bubbling from its punctured eyeball.

Jenny had curled as she fell, pulling her knees up to her chest and waiting for the pain as she landed, trying to fall in a crouch rather than on her injured arm. Behind her the creature fumbled, roaring in pain, and for a moment she was forgotten. There was no time to think, no time to tend her shoulder – she ran, good arm holding her bad, stumbling over roots and scraping against tree trunks in her panic to get away. She aimed vaguely in the direction that she'd been brought, looking for tracks and broken branches as the jolting of her own paces dimmed her vision.

She'd only paused when she'd no longer been able to hear the creature thrashing around. Leaning against a trunk, Jenny had struggled slowly out of her heavy jacket, biting into the tree's bark to channel the pain to somewhere other than her vocal chords. Awkwardly, she'd fashioned a rough sling to hold her arm, wrapping the jacket around her injured shoulder to stop the blood. She was thankful of her heavy clothing, which meant she couldn't see the terrible mess beneath. The fingers of her injured arm were already numb, but Jenny refused to think about that. The pain she could feel was constant and unremitting, the nausea another problem to contend with.

All she had to think about was surviving. All she had to do was find the anomaly site. She could do that. Couldn't she?

She stumbled again, vision blurring as she doubled over to let another stream of bile spatter on the ground. In the haze enveloping her, an image floated, like a photograph snapped of a single moment in time. Jenny let it engulf her, like a memory, like a comfort made tangible.

It was Nick, on a background of the Scottish hills, reaching for her. His hands were outstretched, fingers splayed as if to catch her, for she was already in mid-air, the incongruous spangle of the anomaly framing her last glimpse of home.

xx

To be continued…


	12. Chapter 12

xx

Wrapped in a blanket, Abby sat on the sofa, staring dully into the middle distance. Connor watched her anxiously, eye flicking from the screen in front of him to her face every few seconds. She hadn't moved, or even spoken, since they'd reached Badenyon.

He knew she was thinking about Jenny – they all were. That terrible sight would take a long time to fade. But Connor's horror was tainted by something that shamed him. He was relieved. Relieved that it wasn't Abby that was lost, relieved that it hadn't been her standing so close to the anomaly. And he couldn't forgive himself for that. Jenny had saved Abby's life, and all Connor could think about was how glad he was she was here. Alive. Shaken, but whole.

"Connor," Stephen tapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, focus."

"Sorry, it's just…"

"I know. But we've got to find this thing."

With a heavy sigh, Connor tapped a couple of keys, bringing up a page and pointing at the image. "I think I know what it is."

Stephen leaned over his shoulder, skim-reading the entry with a frown. "Ornithosuchus," he read. "Otherwise known as the bird-crocodile. Please don't tell me it can fly."

"No. They now reckon it's closer to a crocodile than anything else. It's a big carnivore."

"Yeah, I got that." Stephen glanced across at Abby, still staring out at the stormy night. "If it's reptilian I guess it's up Abby's street. Perhaps she can tell me some behavioural stuff."

"I don't think she's really up to it. Can't you track it without her?"

"If she can tell me where I should be looking, maybe I can get a head start, Connor," Stephen said, patiently. "And the quicker I catch this thing, the sooner I'll be ready to step through the anomaly the second it's back. And maybe keeping busy is exactly what she needs right now."

Connor nodded, reluctantly, looking across at Abby again. "Let's just go easy on her, yeah?"

xx

Nick dropped to a crouch again. This time he'd definitely heard something moving. There was something out there – he just wished he knew what it was. He carefully cocked the handgun. It wasn't like him to carry any sort of weapon, and he didn't want to think about the potential consequences letting loose a bullet in prehistory. But needs must…

The sound came again, something crashing through the undergrowth. Nick frowned: he didn't think it was the creature – it didn't sound big enough, and its movements were erratic. It sounded like whatever it was was zig-zagging between the trees. With any luck it wouldn't be a threat to him and he could just avoid it. The less contact he had with indigenous creatures, the better.

He moved back into the undergrowth, feeling the wet leaves press against his face. Nick heard the creature come to a faltering halt just out of his eyeline. And then it gave out an odd sound, like a painful human cough, followed by dry retching. He strained to see – what the hell was it? – and caught sight of a distinctly human foot.

"Oh my god." Nick pushed his way out of his hiding place, heart pounding with adrenaline as he realised he'd never thought he'd actually find her alive. "Oh my god – _Jenny_!"

She was sagging against a tree, retching onto the ground with dry heaves. Nick reached her side and was going to pull her into his arms, overjoyed to have found her, when he saw her arm. Blood had flowed so copiously from her wounds that it had seeped right through the thick jacket she'd wrapped around her injuries.

"Nick?" Jenny sucked in a sobbing, agonised breath, looking up at him with eyes blurred by pain and dehydration. "Nick?"

"I'm here," he reassured her, dropping to his knees and placing his hands either side of her face to steady her gaze. "I'm here, I'm here, I'm here."

Jenny clutched at his arm, and he could feel her shaking. Beneath his hands her skin burned. Her pale face was tinged with a feverish pink.

"It's okay," he murmured, the words not as important as his tone as she leaned into him for support, "everything's going to be okay."

They stayed that for a while as Jenny quietened. Nick strained to listen for any sign of life beyond their own, but could detect nothing.

"Sorry," she whispered at last, struggling weakly to push away. "I'm okay. I'm fine."

He almost laughed at her stubborn need for self-control. "You are not fine. Just rest a minute. Keep still."

Exhausted, she stopped moving, her head falling against his chest. Nick was concerned that she hadn't stopped shaking, but at the same time he felt a spark of pride. How had she managed to survive, to get away? Jenny was obviously in deep shock, suffering terrible injuries that from her feverish look could already be infected – but she'd survived. He'd found her, and whole, despite Stephen's dire predictions.

"Thank you for coming after me," she said quietly. "I never really expected you to."

He pulled back slightly, wanting to lighten the moment. "You're kidding. I can just imagine the sort of paperwork Lester would have me doing if I didn't bring you home."

Jenny gave him a weak smile, before suddenly shoving herself out of his grasp and doubling over to retch into the leaves once more. "Oh god…" she muttered, wiping her mouth, "I'm sorry…"

He rubbed her back as the nausea subsided. "I think being attacked by a prehistoric carnivore is more than enough excuse for being off your game." Nick glanced about him, "We should start moving as soon as you're able, though. The anomaly could re-open at any time and I don't want to waste a moment getting you to a hospital."

Jenny nodded, straightening up and forcing herself to her feet. "Let's go. And your house had better have a damn fine bath, Professor, because the first thing I'm doing once they've stitched up this shoulder is getting in it."

xx

To be continued…


	13. Chapter 13

xx

At first light, Stephen, Abby and Connor set out. They'd stayed the night at Badenyon, and Stephen had taken the car to get the supplies he'd thought they'd need on the trail. A night of sleep had settled his nerves, but the same couldn't be said for Abby or, he suspected, Connor.

"Are you okay?" He asked, as Abby trudged beside him, eyes fixed on the ground. At least it had stopped raining – the ground was wet but vision was good. Perfect tracking conditions. Connor was up ahead, eyes fixed on the anomaly detector as if it were the answer to all their problems.

"Not really," she answered, voice flat. "I just keep thinking about Jenny and Nick. And Connor says the anomaly hasn't reopened since the Professor went through it."

"It'll reopen," Stephen told her, infusing the statement with as much confidence as he could muster.

"How can you be sure? What if it doesn't? What if that was it, and-"

Stephen turned and took her by the shoulders. "Abby. It'll reopen. We'll get them back."

She looked up at him from darkly circled eyes, and nodded, obviously unconvinced.

"Now, what can you tell me about the sort of behaviour we can expect from this Ornithosuchus," Stephen asked, beginning to walk again.

Abby shrugged. "Connor's the dino expert, Stephen."

"Yes, but you're the lizard expert."

"This is a reptile, not a lizard."

"I'm happy to take anything you can give me at this point."

She sighed, rubbing a hand through her hair. "Okay. Well, from the shape of its feet I'd say it was adapted to wet conditions – the fingers were slightly webbed. So maybe it's a marsh dweller. Which is probably why we found tracks up there," Abby waved in the direction of the hills they'd crossed the previous day. "Other than that, you know that it's a carnivore. I'm not sure what else I can tell you."

"How often would it need to feed?"

"It would depend on the size of the animal, and its prey. But the one we're tracking – I'd say a sheep would keep it going for a couple of days. Rabbits, hares, smaller prey like that, less time."

"Well, that explains why the sheep have all vanished from their usual grazing," Stephen mused. "We interrupted it yesterday – it didn't have time to grab its prey," he saw Abby shiver, but carried on, "so let's assume it needed to feed pretty soon after I shot it. If we head towards the nearest farm, we might pick up on something."

xx

Jenny heard a rustle as Cutter returned, and forced her eyes open. Her eyelids felt heavy, and her head seemed to be full of cotton wool. She didn't know how long Nick had been gone. Had she been asleep? Jenny had no sense of passing time – it could have been five minutes, or five hours. She tried to move, tried to sit up.

"Hey," Cutter said softly, "stay where you are." He unscrewed the lid of his water bottle and held it to her lips. She drank gratefully. They had to ration themselves, she knew, but she was so thirsty…

"Any sign?" she asked, her voice sounding like a scratched record.

He grimaced and reluctantly shook his head. Heart sinking, Jenny let her head fall back to the pillow Cutter had made out of his jacket.

"Oh well," she said, sounding braver than she felt as her eyes fluttered closed again. "It's only been a few hours."

When he didn't reply, she forced them open again. He was watching her with open concern.

"Jenny, while I was out there I checked a little more of our surroundings," he said. "There's a lake not far from here – it seems to be fresh water. And there are caves."

She stared at him, not comprehending.

"I think we should move. The caves don't seem to be inhabited."

"But… what if the anomaly reopens? We need to be close – it may only open for a few minutes, we've got to be ready…"

Nick looked down at his hands. "Jenny, I'm worried about you. You're running a fever, and I think your wound is infected. You can hardly move already…" he tailed off, unable to meet her eyes.

"All the more reason to stay close, so I don't have to move far. Right?"

He looked around at the hollow they were sitting in. "If we're attacked here, Jenny, there's not going to be much I can do. We've been lucky so far, but… We just need to be somewhere more easily defendable. And this is a rainforest. It's going to rain sooner or later and if you're out in the elements…"

She shut her eyes again, the effort of keeping them open too draining. "You don't think it's going to open again, do you?"

"It will. _It will. _But maybe not as soon as we thought."

Jenny nodded, eyes still shut, wondering how she was going to stand when she couldn't even bear to keep her eyes open. "Okay. Let's do it."

She bit her lip against the pain even before it hit.

xx

Nick glanced over, seeing Jenny's head loll alarmingly. He had one arm around her back, and had pulled her good arm across his shoulder to try to keep her upright, but she kept losing consciousness, knees crumpling until he was all but dragging her through the undergrowth. He knew the pain in her arm must be unbearable, and he could feel her fever burning right through her clothes. But they had to move. He didn't feel there was a choice.

Thankfully, there wasn't much further to go. They'd cleared the dense forest and were traversing the sandy ridge that rang around the water's edge. It was huge, more like a sea than a lake, stretching into the distance where mountains loomed. Every now and then he could make out something popping its head out of the water before vanishing beneath the gently lapping waves again. Under other circumstances Nick would have paused to take in the view, but he had more pressing matters to attend to.

Ahead of them were rock formations, curiously rounded towers of sand stone that had been honed into strange shapes by regular rainfall. In some places the water had caused gullies, in others, shallow depressions and some deeper caves. There wouldn't be much room, but one of those would provide them shelter and somewhere secure to sleep. He had to try to do something about Jenny's shoulder. The bleeding had stopped but it needed re-dressing, though Nick was aware that was likely the least of her problems.

He didn't know what to do. They'd sat there at the anomaly site for most of a day, waiting for it to open, and there had been no inkling of its existence. What if it really had shut for good? What if they were trapped here, forever?

Cutter felt a wave of panic threaten to overcome him, and he cut it off. He wouldn't think like that. He couldn't, because to stay here without medical treatment would be condemning Jenny to death, and that wasn't an eventuality he was prepared to consider.

They reached the rocks. Getting Jenny up them wasn't easy, but he managed it, eventually letting her down gently into a cave barely 5 ft wide. But it was, at least, deep enough to give them plenty of shelter. Nick crouched beside her, easing his jacket under her head once more. Her face was so pale her skin was almost translucent, the sickly flush he'd seen earlier far more pronounced now.

"Jenny?" he asked, "Can you hear me?"

She said nothing, but groaned, turning her head away as he began to remove the make shift bandage from around her shoulder.

"This is probably going to hurt, and I'm sorry, but I have to look at your shoulder," Nick told her, though he was fairly sure she couldn't hear.

He tugged at the blood-caked fabric as gently as he could, anxious not to re-open the wounds. The sight beneath was bad – so bad that Nick had to turn away for a moment. The bite was infected, that was for sure – it looked like blood poisoning. Tendrils of infection were already stretching away along the veins under her white skin.

"Oh Christ," he muttered, rubbing a hand over his face.

Jenny moaned again, head twisting from side to side. Nick placed a hand on her forehead, trying to calm her. She muttered incoherently, and he knew it was the fever talking. In some ways he was glad she was unconscious – it was the only kind of pain relief she was going to get at the moment.

He took out the bottle of water – almost empty now – and used the last of it to wash her wounds. He'd have to refill it from the lake – hardly sterilised, but it was better than nothing. All he had for a bandage was his own sweater, which he tore into strips, saving as much as he could. Nick knew he'd have to change the wrappings again later.

Once done, he sat back and watched her for a while, tossing and turning in the ragged sleep of sickness. Blood poisoning – it couldn't be worse. Without antibiotics she wouldn't last more than a couple of days. After that would come coma and after that…

Refusing to think about the inevitable, he moved to the front of the cave and looked out. The aperture was too small for him to stand upright, so he crouched, watching the landscape of pre-history as it stood before him. He thought of Helen, somewhere out there in the convoluted strains of time. How did she cope with it? With being somewhere so inhuman, so lacking in familiarity? For Nick, a visit here ad there was enough. A privilege, maybe, but one he didn't crave to extend. He had no desire to live out his life in this place – godforsaken wasn't the right word, since god hadn't even been invented yet.

He heard Jenny moan again. Nick picked up the water bottle and left the cave, heading for the lake. His hand strayed to the handgun tucked into the waistband of his jeans, and thought of its owner.

"Come on, Stephen," he murmured into the ancient air. "We must have left a trail good enough for a blind man to find."

All they needed was for the anomaly to open, and for help to be waiting when it did.

xx

To be continued…


	14. Chapter 14

xx

Connor watched as Stephen crouched beside the depression. A fine drizzle had begun to fall again, adding to the unmistakable grey of the day. He tried to ignore the sheep's carcass that lay beside the imprint – it was a cruel reminder of a crueller fate.

"Well, it's definitely the Ornithosuchus," Stephen pronounced with a sigh, straightening up.

Connor felt like being sarcastic – after all, what else could it have been? – but thought better of it. There was enough misery around without adding bad feeling to the list. He looked back down the hill to where Abby was talking to the farmer, and wondered how she was doing. Trying to convince anyone who had seen this mess that it had been caused by a natural predator would be a tall order.

Though Jenny could probably have managed it.

"So, any sign of where it went?" he asked, sending his train of thought on a different track.

Stephen indicated further up the hillside. "Straight up. And we're not far behind it," he said, "this is a recent kill – not more than an hour old, I would have said."

The younger man nodded. "Guess we head on then, eh?" His words were interrupted by a sudden ping, emanating from the wide pocket of his jacket. He and Stephen stared at each other for a second before Connor exploded into action, pulling the anomaly detector from his pocket.

"It's back!" he shouted, "Stephen, it's back, we have to go!"

Abby, hearing his exclamation, began running towards them. Stephen looked up the mountain, in the direction the tracks were leading.

"Come on, Stephen, we've got to go. This is the first time it's opened in 24 hours."

Still Stephen hesitated, evidently torn between wanting to head for the anomaly and finding the Ornithosuchus.

"Cutter probably needs our help," Connor pressed, "Come on, Stephen."

Abby reached them, grabbing the anomaly detector to see for herself before looking between the two men. "We'll go, Stephen, you carry on tracking."

"Abby," Connor protested, "We need him – Cutter might need him!"

"We can't let that thing carry on loose out here," she waved abruptly at the eviscerated sheep. "If it did that to an animal, what's it going to do to a human? Come on, let's go. If they get back and need help, we can organise it."

Stephen nodded, reluctantly. "Just don't go through, okay?" he said. "If Cutter doesn't come back of his own accord – don't go looking for him."

"You look after the creature," said Abby, already turning in the direction of the anomaly. "We'll look after this. Come on Connor, we have to go."

They ran, the pale light of the anomaly glittering in the distance.

xx

When the rain came, it fell in fat, drowning drops. It woke Nick from his restless slumber, propped awkwardly beside Jenny in the narrow cave. Blinking into the light of a pre-historic dawn, he looked her over. Her breathing was thready, erratic, the fever still rising in a body that looked increasingly fragile. Nick tipped the last of the lake water onto a scrap of fabric, and touched it to her face and neck. She stirred, mumbling but insensible.

Nick felt his stomach turn over, a mixture of anxiety, hunger and probably the microbes from the lake water attacking his system. Looking at the empty bottle, he realised rain water would probably be purer. Taking Jenny's utility knife, he cut the bottle in half. Careful not to disturb her, he scrambled to the edge of the cave and stepped out into the rain. He stood the two makeshift cups on a ledge of stone, and watched the faintly warm water begin to fill them, wishing they were bigger.

He looked out over the wet landscape, noting the movements of large mammals beside the lake. If the situation hadn't been so dire this would be the perfect place to observe pre-history - a waterhole that attracted just about every creature indigenous to this time.

Turning to look back at the sun rising over the rocks, something caught his eye. Nick froze. On a ledge a few meters to the left of their cave opening stood a collection of objects that definitely didn't belong in the Triassic. After an instant of shocked disbelief, he lunged towards them, almost slipping on the wet stone in his sudden rush.

Two bottles of penicillin. A two-litre bottle of water. A small pile of cereal bars. A lighter.

Nick leaned against the ledge, fingers whitening on the cold, slippery stone as he stared at the offering. His mind went blank, and then instantly filled with the only word that made sense.

He stood and turned, but couldn't see what he was looking for.

"Helen!" Nick shouted, lungs bursting with the effort. Her name echoed along the ancient ridges, but there was no answer. "_HELEN_!"

xx

They reached the anomaly, but there was no sign of Nick – or Jenny. Connor bent over, out of breath. Abby paced before the anomaly, agitated.

"Come on, Professor," she muttered, "Come on. Where are you?"

Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Nothing came through. Abby finally stopped, rubbing a hand over her tired face. She looked up at Connor, a determined look on her face.

"I'm going."

He shook his head immediately, realising that he'd already known what she was going to say. "We can't."

"We have to. What if they're just the other side, injured? Or what if they haven't seen it open? They don't have a detector."

"Abby, we can't. We don't have anything to defend ourselves with, for a start."

Abby shook her head. "I'm going, Connor. You can come, or not – but I'm going."

Before he could say anything else, she'd turned, squared her shoulders, and stepped through the shimmering light.

"Dammit!" Connor glanced back up the hill, willing Stephen to appear. There was no sign. "Dammit," he muttered again, before taking a deep breath and following.

The change was instantaneous and disorienting. The rolling hills were gone, replaced by dense, dark forest. His feet cracked a twig, the sudden snap loud in the weird quiet. Abby was just a few feet in front of him, looking around. Of Professor Cutter, or Jenny, there was no sign.

How would they ever find them? If they weren't here, did that mean they were dead, or lost, or what? Connor looked around, brain mired in the possibilities.

"Abby, I don't think-"

She cut him off, beginning to shout. "Professor? Jenny?"

There was no answer.

"Nick!" She shouted again, "Jenny! Where are you?"

Silence answered again, and Abby went to take a step into the undergrowth, but Connor stopped her.

"We can't search everywhere."

"We've got to try! They've got to be here somewhere!"

"Abby, what if-"

She cut him off, shouting again, calling their names over and over in the forest quiet. After a few moments, Connor joined in too.

Still, there was nothing. Connor fell silent and waited for Abby to follow. She stared at him, unshed tears in her eyes.

"We have to move deeper into the forest," she said. "We have to keep looking."

"Abby, we're not safe here. We have to go back."

She shook her head, defiant. "No. We have to try."

Connor glanced up at the anomaly, which suddenly seemed paler. With a frown, he pulled out the detector.

"It's getting weaker," he said, but Abby didn't answer. He looked up to see her already heading through the undergrowth. "Abby, the anomaly is closing! We have to go back!"

She didn't stop. Connor glanced at the anomaly again; it's colours fading swiftly now. Lunging forward, he grabbed her arm and dragged her towards it.

"Connor!"

"We have to go. We have to go _now_."

"We can't leave them – we can't!"

Abby fought him, but he wouldn't let her go, and as the anomaly shivered on the point of collapse, he forced her through, back to their own time. It snapped shut behind them, as surely as if it had never been.

xx

To be continued…


	15. Chapter 15

xx

Jenny's body was hot and limp as Nick struggled to pull her on to his lap. He tilted her head in the crook of his arm, watching her eyelids flicker, deep in some fevered dream. Beside him on the floor of the cave stood one of his makeshift cups, full of water from the new bottle, and two tabs of penicillin.

"Jenny," he said, speaking close to her ear, her sweat-damp hair pushed back, "Jenny, you've got to swallow these, okay? I'm going to give you some water…"

Nick tipped the cup against her mouth. She parted her pale lips a sliver, but choked, shuddering and coughing, as the liquid hit the back of her throat.

"No, no, no," he muttered, "come on, Jenny, you can do this…"

Her eyes opened a fraction, but it was clear that she saw nothing. A confused look shivered across her face. Nick had to lean closer to make out her whisper.

"…M-Mark?"

Nick froze briefly, wondering whether to lie. Jenny didn't know where she was, let alone whom she was with, and maybe a lie would be kinder. But he decided against it.

"It's Nick, Jenny. Mark's at home. But we'll get you back there soon…"

She frowned, the creases moving across her translucent skin like shadows.

"Nick?"

"Yes, that's right. Nick Cutter. From the Anomaly Research Centre."

Her eyes shut again, the ghost of a smile dancing briefly across her lips. Nick thought she'd lapsed back into unconsciousness, but she stared to speak again, even more faintly.

"…Nick…" she whispered.

He tightened his arm around her, "Yes," he said, "I'm here, Jenny. I'm here."

"…can't be… Nick… hates me…" she paused, struggling to open her eyes once more, before again whispering, "…Mark…?"

Nick's chest convulsed, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He rested his forehead against hers. "I don't hate you. God, Jenny, I don't, I…" He pulled back to look at her, a truth fluttering somewhere at the edge of his mind. He took a breath, silencing himself. He had to get the penicillin into her before it was too late. That was all that mattered.

"I'm here, Jenny," Nick said again, in as calm a voice as he could muster. "It's Mark. I'm here, and you need to swallow these pills. Okay?"

He watched as her eyes fluttered shut again. There was the merest hint of a nod, and he tipped the cup against her lips. This time she managed to hold it, and Nick gently pushed the pills one after another, into her mouth, followed by more water. For a moment she hesitated, on the edge of losing consciousness. Putting down the cup, he stroked her throat with the back of his hand, encouraging her body to swallow whether she knew it or not. Jenny gulped once, a painful effort for such a frail life, and Nick allowed himself a sigh of relief.

"Okay. Good, that's good. You can sleep now. Just sleep…"

He held her like that for a long time, her erratic breathing a discordant soundtrack in his ears.

xx

Stephen watched as the Ornithosuchus crested the hill. He himself was crouched in a hollow about 50 yards away, having tracked the creature from its last kill. It didn't seem to be hunting at the moment, and was instead looking for somewhere to rest. Stephen was surprised that it hadn't turned back in the direction of the anomaly – he would have thought it'd be able to tell when a route back to its own time had opened again. Birds, after all, were able to find their way home from vast distances, some sort of intricate in-built map system guiding them home across oceans, mountain ranges and deserts. Perhaps there was something about the electromagnetic field of the anomaly that scrambled that sense, or maybe that ability just hadn't evolved yet. Either way, the Ornithosuchus didn't seem perturbed, ambling along with a powerful gait that betrayed its muscular form.

Of course there was the possibility that the anomaly had shut again as quickly as it opened. Cutter could be back at this very minute, being cared for by Abby and Connor.

Stephen didn't ponder on the other possibility: that the anomaly had opened and closed without the reappearance of his friend.

Suddenly, he froze, cursing his momentary distraction. While his mind had been elsewhere, the prehistoric creature had vanished from sight. He moved forward, keeping low to the ground, wishing there was more cover.

Suddenly, there was a blur of movement in the corner of his eye. The creature was upon him almost before he'd registered its charge, the air full of slashing claws and gnashing teeth.

"Argh!"

Stephen dropped to his knees and flung himself sideways, trying to avoid the Ornithosuchus' jaws, but found himself broadsided by its tail, thick as a tree trunk, instead. It hit him right in the solar plexus as he struggled to his feet. Winded, he stumbled, gasping for breath.

The creature was on him in an instant – he heard the snap of its jaws as its teeth ghosted the edge of his ear. Still barely able to breathe, Stephen struggled to turn himself on his back, forcing the gun between himself and his attacker. With an ear-splitting roar it snapped at him again. Stephen saw it coming and skidded to the right, but not far enough – with a cry of pain he felt teeth scrape across his hip, feeling the tear in his clothes instantly fill with blood. Almost blinded by the pain, he forced his fingers into position, pushing the barrel of the gun as far from his face as he could.

He fired as the creature, driven mad by the smell of blood, plunged towards him once again.

xx

To be continued…


	16. Chapter 16

The footsteps woke him from a troubled sleep. His eyes opened to utter darkness, the cave a suffocating womb of night. The movement came again and he raised his head, looking towards their shelter's opening. The moon's silvery light highlighted the edge of the cave, but he could see nothing but more darkness beyond.

Nick looked down at Jenny, laid across his chest. He'd tried to lever her on top of him, aiming to keep her from chilling in the early morning temperatures. He stilled, holding his own breath, until he saw her chest move. Her breathing was still difficult, but at least it was there. He didn't have the courage to check her pulse.

Angling her body away from him, he laid her on the ground, head against the remnants of his jacket.

Exiting the cave, he at first saw nothing. The moon illuminated the vast lake, casting this ancient world in monotones. He could see movement beside the water, creatures taking their fill while their predators were sleeping. He turned, surveying the rocks above their hiding place, but again saw nothing. He glanced towards the rock that had held their previous rations, but it was empty.

Maybe he'd imagined it? Maybe he'd been dreaming when he'd thought…

"Hello, Nick."

He span at the sound of her voice, and had to squint to make out her silhouette, almost hidden against the rock mass.

"Helen," he breathed.

She moved towards him slowly, as if stalking something, finally coming to a standstill a few meters away. In the darkness, her face was shadowed, but he saw her flick her eyes towards the cave's entrance.

"How is she?"

"Not good."

She sighed, somewhat indulgently. "Ah, but without the penicillin, she'd be worse…"

Nick nodded. "Thank you for that. And the water. But- Helen, you've got to help us get out of here."

She raised her eyebrows, and looking around, sat atop a convenient rock. "What makes you think I can do that, Professor?"

"Come on, Helen. You come and go through these time zones as if it were nothing. No one ever sees you. You know what you're doing. You can help us."

"I thought I already had…" Helen stretched her arms out, lazily, reaching into the eternal stars.

Nick was silent for a moment, watching her, trying to work out what the hell she was doing. When the provisions had turned up, he hadn't considered there was some sort of agenda at play. How could there be? But now…

"If you're not here to get us home, what is it you want?"

She laughed, very quietly. "Oh, you know me, Nick. I'm on an endless quest for knowledge."

There was something about her nonchalance that chilled him.

"Helen, just tell me. What do you want?"

"Nothing, really. Honestly, Nick, you're so suspicious. Anyway, I would have thought you'd be interested in the possibilities."

"The possibilities?"

"Of course. You've got this whole planet to yourselves, you and – what's her name now? – Jenny. No other humans anywhere. You're the only two. Well, and me. For now."

He stayed silent, mind whirring around a sudden and abject fear. Helen stood, meandering towards him until she stood right inside his space. She reached out a hand, laying it on his chest with an intimacy they hadn't shared for years.

"Just think about it, Nick. Think what would have happened if modern man had evolved a few million years before we actually did. Think what that would mean for the human race."

"What-" his voice faltered, and he cleared his throat. "What are you talking about?"

She smiled, something cruel sparkling in her eyes. "An experiment, Nick. The greatest experiment of all time."

He drew in a breath, stepping away from her. "You're mad."

Helen's eyes narrowed. "Oh come on, Nick, that's not very fair, is it? You're the one who came chasing after a dead woman with nothing but a handgun."

He turned away, rubbing his hands over his face. "Look, Helen, enough. I think you can tell – somehow, and I really don't need to know how, or why – when an anomaly opens. So please, just help us get out of here. Help me get Jenny home. And I'll never ask anything of you again."

He heard her move behind him, coming to his side.

"Oh Nick," she said, mocking disappointment in her voice, "where's the fun in that?"

He spun, rounding on her with a growing fury. "You can't leave us here! She'll die."

Helen smiled, "Ahh… yes. The great dilemma."

"Dilemma?"

"Yes. Our own little version of the Moral Maze, Nick." Helen moved away, pacing, "You see, I don't want Jenny to die any more than you do, Nick. Hence the antibiotics. I mean, it'll still be touch and go, but she's a strong girl, she should be able to fight it. But the thing is… and here's where we differ, Nick… you want to take her home. And I want her to stay here. I want you both to stay here."

Nick was speechless. She turned to him with another smile. "Like I said, Nick. What would have happened if man had evolved so much earlier than we did?"

There was a brief silence. A rather nasty penny was beginning to drop. He looked away, feeling himself begin to shake.

"And so," Helen continued, turning to look across the lake, "here we have it, a ready made experiment, with a very great dilemma. Because let's face it, I know that you don't want to be responsible for the human race defying the natural course of evolution. You're so… _conservative_, Nick. But what can you do to stop it? If you and she are left here… for good? Ta da! A Moral Maze. You could – in fact, you probably should – let her die, and then follow yourself in whatever noble way you can find. But if you've got the means to keep her alive, right there, dropped in your lap? I wonder Nick, could you really let her suffer, even for the sake of humanity as we know it? And after that, if she survives... what then? The two of you, here together for the rest of your natural lives…"

He lunged for her, but she was too quick, leaping away up the rock face with ease. She stopped again, looking down at him and laughing. "Oh come on, Nick. It could be fun."

He shook his head, momentarily dumb with fear and outrage. Then he took a deep breath, steadying himself. Nick looked up at Helen, and she must have known he was about to beg.

"Take her back," he said, clearly and quietly. "Helen, I'll stay here. I'll be your experiment. You can observe me to your heart's content. But take Jenny back home. Please, Helen. Please."

She studied him for a moment, eyebrows raised, considering something. "Wow. You really can't resist that face, can you?" Helen shook her head. "Well then, I hope for your sake she doesn't live, Nick, because I wonder just how long you can keep that to yourself if she's the only woman on Earth?"

Nick froze, watching helplessly as Helen took a pack from her back and threw it to him. He caught it.

"Just some things I thought might make your life easier," she shrugged, straightening up. "See you around, Nick."

And with that, she was gone.


	17. Chapter 17

xx

Abby moved in the uncomfortable chair, leaning forward and rotating her shoulders. It did no good. She should have brought a cushion – she'd meant to, she'd just forgotten. Again. Perhaps she should go and ask one of the nurses if they had one to spare. But Connor had gone in search of coffee, and she didn't want to leave Stephen unattended.

Standing, Abby paced the room, glancing out at the grey day beyond the hospital walls. She looked back at Stephen, prone in the bed. Five days he'd been here. Five days they'd stood vigil while the doctors waited for him to wake up. Or die.

Abby shivered, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. She couldn't believe how everything had changed. Nick and Jenny were gone, lost somewhere in time and unreachable. Stephen lay, a pale shade of his robust self, unconscious and struggling with an unknown disease. Oh, the irony – that he'd survived the blood loss from the bite only to come down with some unknown illness. God only knew what it was, but it was raging in his system like wildfire. No one knew what to do, least of all the doctors who were his only hope.

The door opened and Connor arrived, carrying two large Starbucks cups. His eyes roved first towards the occupant of the bed. He held out a coffee, and she took it without meeting his eyes.

"Any change?"

"No. Just the same. You?" She meant the anomaly detector. Connor hadn't let it out of his sight since they came off the hills, even though there was now a permanent ARC team staking out in case it reappeared. It hadn't. Of the anomaly, or Nick Cutter, or Jenny Lewis, there was no sign.

"Nothing. Sorry."

They lapsed into silence, as they so often had since their unsuccessful trip into prehistory. It wasn't that Abby was particularly angry with him. After all, if he hadn't dragged her back through the anomaly when he did, they wouldn't have found Stephen. But there just didn't seem much to say. Abby hadn't realised how important this team and her place in it had been until it had been sawn asunder.

Connor dropped into the chair she had previously occupied, resting his elbows on his knees and playing anxiously with the cup's lid.

"You can go, if you like," he said. "Feed Rex, or get some fresh air, or whatever."

She nodded, although his face was turned away. "Thanks," she said quietly. "I'll see you later."

xx

Nick crouched beside the water, motionless. In his hand was the bowie knife that had been one of Helen's 'gifts' – he'd lashed it to a stripped branch to produce a makeshift spear. And now he was going to test it out on the Osteichthyes he'd been stalking for the past five minutes. Carefully, Nick shuffled forward, raising his hand imperceptibly in readiness to strike, until –

"Nick?"

The voice shattered his concentration. He jerked suddenly, the shadow of his arm alerting the fish to his presence. It skittered away, deep into the lower recesses of the lake.

Nick looked up, shielding his eyes from the harsh Triassic light. Jenny stood a few meters away, watching him uncertainly and leaning against a tree trunk for support. He stood, all thoughts of food forgotten.

"Hey! You're – are you okay?" This was the furthest she'd ventured from the cave since her fever had broken three days ago.

"I'm… okay," she said, as he walked towards her. "Oh. A bit faint, actually…"

Jenny turned grey as he reached her side, and Nick put out an arm to steady her as she swayed slightly. "You shouldn't have come out," he told her gently, leaning the spear against the tree and beginning to lead her back to the cave. "You're still weak – you need rest."

"I woke up and you weren't there," she muttered, "I thought…"

"I'm sorry. I went to check on the anomaly site and then tried to catch some lunch. You really need some protein."

She nodded, eyes squeezed shut, and Nick guessed her head was swimming. Jenny still wasn't completely rid of the infection, and the blood loss was still taking its toll. "I was scared," she said, simply, "I'm sorry. I know that's pathetic. But the idea of being alone here…"

Nick smiled as she looked at him again. "It's not pathetic. We're stuck millions of years in the past, surrounded by predators. And you've been really, really sick. You're allowed to be scared."

Jenny looked up at him, brown eyes frowning. "You're not."

"Sure I am. I've just got other things to worry about that keep me busy."

She smiled wryly. "Like looking after me."

Nick nodded.

"It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it?" she suggested. "This must be your idea of a worst nightmare."

"Nah," he joked, though his thoughts returned painfully to her fevered whisper of a few days before, "that would be playing nursemaid to _Lester."_

A ghost of a smile crossed Jenny's lips as they began the brief ascent to their cave. "I take it there was no sign of the anomaly then?"

Nick shook his head, and tried to inject cheer into his voice as he said. "No, not yet."

Jenny was silent as they reached the mouth of the cave, and she dropped to her knees to crawl inside. Her arm was still in a sling, curled against her chest.

When she'd settled on the small rug – another home comfort courtesy of Helen – she looked up at him. "It's been a week, Nick."

"I know."

"A _week_. I think it's gone. I think we're stuck here…"

"Don't think like that," he told her as he busied himself with pouring her some water and, as she drank it, removed the sling to check her bite. Helen had left topical antiseptic as well, and he applied some to the ragged edges of the wound, glad to see that it was healing.

"Come on, Nick. We can't stay positive forever. What are we going to do? If we're stuck here, what are we going to _do_?"

Nick looked up at her, at her expressive brown eyes and tangled hair and torn shoulder, and all he could think was that he was glad she was alive. "Jenny, just because it hasn't opened yet doesn't mean it won't. We have to stay positive. You're getting stronger every day, and the infection will be gone soon. We're going to survive, for as long as it takes, until the anomaly opens again. And then we're going home."

Jenny didn't answer, staring out of the cave entrance at the empty landscape outside. There was a sadness in her eyes, and Nick wondered what she was thinking about – Mark? The idea of being stuck here with him, Nick, forever? Her lost career, her real life…?

It was funny, but when Nick thought about being stuck here, it was the fear of what that might do to the timeline that bothered him, rather than the loss of what he had left behind.

He wondered what that said about his life.

xx

to be continued…


	18. Chapter 18

Author's note: I'm back! Sorry for the lengthy delay. Life is insanely manic at the moment. But with a bit of luck I should be able to finish this now. Thanks for sticking with it (if you have!)

xXx

Abby knew there was something off as soon as she pushed open the door. Corrunich was always such a peaceful place, but now… It felt like something was different. Like there was something here that didn't belong. Abby shook herself, slightly ashamed of her faint superstition.

Rex didn't come to meet her as he would usually at home, but that wasn't surprising. She'd been worried about transporting him so far, but there was no way Abby was going to leave him alone any longer and she couldn't go home. Not while Nick and Jenny were missing and Stephen was… She cut herself off, unwilling to even think of the possibility.

She'd had the ARC guys pick him up before the left London, though Abby hated that she couldn't be there herself, hated to think of how scared he'd been when they came to get him. He'd almost been in a state of shock when they finally arrived, and it added yet more guilt to the pile she'd been amassing since Jenny vanished into the past.

"Rex? Where are you buddy?"

She wandered into the rooms one after another, peering into corners and beneath furniture. "Rex? Come on, it's dinner time."

By the time she'd searched upstairs and still not found him, Abby was beginning to panic. She came back down the stairs, pulling her mobile out of her pocket and flipping it open. It wasn't until she got to the bottom step that she realised that she had no one to call. Connor's would be off, while in the hospital. And who else was there?

She sank on to the step and put her head in her hands. It wasn't often Abby cried.

"Oh, there, there," came a voice from the living room. "It's never as bad as you think."

Abby froze. She stood, slowly, and took a few steps: enough to see into the cozy, clean living room. Enough to see the figure curled up on the sofa.

Helen was wearing the dressing gown Jenny had worn on the morning she was dragged through the anomaly. For some reason the sight made Abby irrationally angry. Helen looked like she'd just got out of the shower – and on her lap was Rex. Abby ran forward.

"Rex!"

The lizard looked up as she came in, and chittered before trying to jump from Helen's legs. Helen held him firmly.

"Let him go! If you hurt him, I'll-"

Irritation flickered across the older woman's face. "Why on Earth would I hurt him? Don't be hysterical, Abby – I always thought you were a smart girl, don't spoil it."

Abby stood still, watching Helen through narrowed eyes. She'd never spent much time with her before, that had been the Professor and Steven's province, and to tell the truth even before her revelation about her affair, Abby hadn't liked her much. She was too slippery, too calculating. And she'd let the Professor grieve for eight years. What sort of person does that?

"What are you doing here?"

Helen smiled, "Funny, I could ask you the same thing. This is my house, after all."

"It's not your house," Abby spat with indignation, "It's Nick's house."

"He and I are still married, you know," Helen said, standing and dropping Rex unceremoniously on the sofa.

"Funny, that didn't seem to matter when you left him. Or even before that, when you and Steven-" She stopped, a sudden image of Steven's grey face against a hospital bed flickering in her mind.

Helen had moved towards her with that careful swagger she seemed so proud of. Hate flooded Abby, twitching her fingers into fists. God, how she'd like to pummel that smirking face, how she'd like to hurt this woman who had hurt her friends, _really_ hurt her –

"You know, if Nick and I had ever got around to having children, I rather like to think they'd have been something like you."

Abby's jaw clenched. "What do you want?" she asked, slowly, forcing her rage into each careful word.

Helen's face changed, became harder. "I came to tell you that you're not going to find Nick. Or the woman. The anomaly's closed, this time for good."

"Jenny," Abby said, "her name is Jenny."

"Not any more it isn't."

"What do you mean?"

Helen sighed. "Look, I know it's all very sad, I know she had a fiancé and everything, but… she's gone. Nick's gone. Whatever was causing an anomaly that opened in that period has gone, too, which means no more anomaly. Which means no more way to get them home. Got it?"

"I don't believe you."

Helen sighed. "Now why on Earth would you say that?"

"Because you're a liar. And leopards don't change their spots."

The older woman laughed, apparently delighted. Abby's skin crawled. "Well, either way, Abby, you're not going to get them back. So you might as well go home, all of you. Those poor men out on the hills – it's pointless."

"They're not going anywhere," Abby assured her. "If you want them to leave, that's a good enough reason for them to stay."

Helen shrugged. "Suit yourself. They'll be waiting for nothing, though."

"What about Steven?"

Helen stilled. "What about him?"

"He's sick. Really sick. The doctor's think… they don't know what's wrong, and so they can't treat him. He's going to die."

"What happened to him?"

"The Ornithosuchus bit him."

A frown passed the older woman's face. "Well that's very – inconvenient."

If Helen had been standing closer, Abby would have ripped her face off there and then. But something about Helen's manner gave her pause, and perhaps even some hope.

"Can you help him?"

"Oh, you want my help now?"

"Of course I want your help. Not just for Stephen, for Nick and Jenny too. There must be something-"

"Who do you think I am, superwoman?"

Abby paused. "No. You're not superwoman. But you like playing god."

Helen smiled, a slow, thoughtful smile. "You've got me all wrong, you know. All of you."

Suddenly, Abby was tired. Bone, bone tired. She sank down into the nearest armchair, and Rex ran towards her like a cat.

"I don't care," she said, her voice sounding hollow even to her, "I don't care what you want or what you don't want. I don't give a shit. Just help Steven, if you can."

She petted Rex for a while, and thought that Helen was considering her response. It wasn't until she looked up that she realised the room was empty.

Helen had gone.

xXx

Jenny lay on her side, propped up on her good elbow, watching the play of early morning light trace shadows on Nick's face. Even in sleep he looked anxious, a testament to their harsh existence here in this prehistoric place. Only yesterday he'd been forced to fend off some sort of bi-pedal foe that looked to Jenny as if it might have been a young T-Rex. She had no idea what sort of dinosaur it was, but anything with teeth like that couldn't be good.

Nick shifted in his sleep, dreams prompting him to turn in her direction and mutter something, his hand stretching towards her before dropping to the ground between them. They were close, just inches apart, and it was funny how she'd become used to sleeping in such proximity to him. It wasn't as if they had any choice, after all, but Jenny couldn't help but think that she should probably find it odd. But she didn't. The angst, or whatever it was that had existed between them back in their own time seemed to be entirely absent here. Which was just as well, because being that they were the only two people on the planet… Sustaining enmity in this sort of situation would have been unbearable.

Jenny shuddered to think of it. How could it only be them on this vast, spinning globe in space?

She looked down at Nick again, grateful for his presence. If he hadn't come after her, what then? But he had come, and he'd kept her alive and brought her back to health, stranding himself with her in this desolate past in the process.

Jenny wondered why he had done it.

Something out on the plain barked a loud, harsh call, and Nick opened his eyes. For a moment he froze, staring up at her with confusion. She couldn't help but smile.

"Hey," she said quietly. "Good morning."

Nick blinked, and then moved, rubbing one hand over his face as he pushed himself away from her to lean against the opposite wall.

"Uh… morning…" he muttered.

She sat up, confused by his reaction. "Are you okay?"

"Fine. Fine…" He didn't look at her, staring out of the cave entrance instead. "Just…odd dreams."

She pushed herself upright, sitting cross legged with her back against the opposite wall. Even as far apart as they could be, her knee still brushed his leg as she settled. He jumped slightly, moving away from her again, and Jenny frowned. Nick obviously needed some space.

"I'm going to go out for some fresh air," she told him. "See you in a bit."

He just nodded. After another moment of puzzlement, Jenny crawled to the front of the cave and stepped out.

xXx

To be continued…


	19. Chapter 19

xXx

Nick sucked in a ragged breath as Jenny left the cave. Rubbing both hands over his face, he shook his head. Where the hell had that come from?

The dream had been vividly erotic, and then he'd woken up, opened his eyes and-

And there she was, so close, smiling at him in a way he'd never seen before, and Nick knew without a doubt that the woman in his dream had been Jenny Lewis.

"Shit," he muttered, still vaguely aroused and at the same time very shaken_. It was nothing_, he told himself, _it was just a dream. It doesn't mean anything._

But it did mean something, it must do, because the dream still floated in his memory. He could almost taste it, almost taste _her_, feel her,_ feel_ that passion as if it had been real…

And the worst thing about it was the stirring in his stomach, the knot of excitement that had flared as he'd stared up at her face on waking.

"God damn it!" Nick pressed his fingers to his eyes. This was not happening. He wouldn't let it happen. He couldn't. She wasn't Claudia, which still had to mean something, didn't it? And Nick hadn't forgotten her fevered need for her fiancée. He wouldn't be enamoured of the only woman on Earth when she was pining for someone else. He had more self-respect than that. And those issues, of course, were merely the tip of a very large iceberg.

"God damn it, Stephen," he muttered to himself. "Where the hell are you?"

xXx

The heart monitor beeped, and the artificial lung sank again, pumping another puff of air into Stephen's windpipe. Connor sat in the darkness, the rhythm of the life-support machine doing nothing to soothe him. The only lights in the room came from the mass of equipment that surrounded the dying man's bed. Lights blinked here and there, but other than that it was so dark that Connor couldn't even make out his own hands in front of his face. Which was fine by him. Somehow, right now, being swallowed by an eternal blackness was preferable to facing the realities of life as they were currently presenting themselves.

Outside, the rain had started again, and it drove against the window beside him. Every now and then a car would pass, splashing through the gathering puddles. Ambulances came and went, their sirens cracking the silence as their lights cast lurid florescence through the gaps around the window blinds.

The hopelessness seemed less in the dark. Stephen had gone into a sharp decline some hours earlier, and Connor had watched as the doctors had declared respiratory failure. Then they'd wheeled in all these machines.

Now it was quiet again, except for the rhythmic breathing of the apparatus, keeping Stephen alive. The doctors still didn't know what was wrong. They said the symptoms followed the pattern of infection. But their antibiotics had done no good, and Stephen continued to deteriorate. One of them had placed a hand on Connor's shoulder, and urged him to "prepare himself."

Abby hadn't returned yet, and Connor couldn't call her. He knew he probably should, in case these hours were Stephen's last. But he couldn't bring himself to explain that over the phone.

He sat there, immobile, listening to the splash of water outside until time lengthened and the beeping faded…

…something woke him sometime later. It was an indeterminate noise – at first he'd thought someone had opened the door, but as he blinked awake, he could see nothing. The lights were still off, it was still dark. Connor didn't move, adjusting to the room, but there was no sound. If Abby had returned, she would have called his name – she knew he'd still be here. If it had been a doctor, they would have put the light on.

Moments passed, and Connor decided he had been mistaken. But still, sleep had fled for good, and his neck ached from lolling against his shoulder. He stood, carefully, stretching his arms as the muscles protested.

And then he saw it – a figure crouched beside the bed. He froze.

"Hey – who's there? What are you doing?"

The figure straightened as Connor reached for the light with his heart hammering in his chest. He flicked it, illuminating the room with harsh, unnatural light.

"Helen!"

"Turn the light off, for god's sake!" The woman hissed. "Do you want everyone to know I'm here?"

Connor took in the syringe she held and lunged forward as she stood up. "What are you doing? Get away from him!"

She made a harsh sound in her throat, almost like a growl. "Shut up, or they'll hear you and Stephen won't be the only one on the brink of death!"

She leaned over Stephen again, and Connor went for the emergency button. But Helen was on him like a flash, knocking him to the ground beside the bed. Connor's head struck the floor with a crack as she leaned on him, holding the syringe to his neck.

"Come on," she whispered, "You must be a smart boy – Nick wouldn't have put up with you if you weren't. You don't want Stephen to die, do you?"

Connor's head rang with the impact against his skull, and his eyes were still struggling to adjust to the light. "I…. what?"

"I'm going to save him. You have to trust me."

Despite his throbbing head and the needle pointed at his jugular, Connor laughed. "Trust you. Right. Yeah…"

Helen's face changed suddenly, freezing as she glanced over her shoulder. A second later she pushed her free hand over his mouth and ducked her head further below the edge of Stephen's bed. Connor encountered yet another moment of pure confusion until he heard the door open and footsteps enter. He prayed that whoever it was would come further into the room and find them sprawled on the floor. He tried to move, but Helen's weight pinned him down and he felt the prick of the syringe as she pressed it against his skin.

The footsteps moved, coming closer. Rolling his eyes sideways, Connor could see the nurse's feet on the other side of the bed. She was obviously checking Stephen's condition. After a couple more minutes, she turned and left the room again, flicking it once more into darkness as the door closed behind her.

Helen breathed a sigh of relief and moved back a little, though she kept the syringe where it was.

"Look," she told him. "Enough with the hysterics. These clowns have no idea what's wrong with him – they're treating him for the wrong sickness. I know what's wrong and I know how to treat it. So why don't you let me got on with it before it's too late?"

Connor looked up at her. Could he trust her? Should he? All Connor knew was that Stephen was dying and the Doctor's didn't seem to be able to help. That much _was_ true.

"How do you know what will help him?" he rasped. "The Ornithosuchus bite-"

"-Has nothing to do with it," Helen interrupted. "It's not an infection, it's a fungus. It's in his lungs. That's why the antibiotics aren't working."

"But-"

"Connor," she said, stopping him dead – he didn't think she even knew his name. "Look. He's dying. You know that. His respiratory system is shutting down. These Doctors aren't helping. They don't even know how to help. So what harm can it do to let me try?"

"What? Lots of harm!"

Exasperated, she stood up, dragging him to his feet. Connor realised that the room wasn't as dark as before – the sun was coming up, slowly. A faint blush of dawn tainted the room as Helen held up the syringe.

"This is it, Connor. Save him, or don't save him. It's all down to you. Right now. What's your choice?"

'I don't understand. How do you know –"

"The antibiotics haven't worked," Helen said, impatiently. "If it was an infection from the Ornithosuchus bite itself, then they should have. So it has to be something else. A new fungus has been killing rabbits in Speyside. It grows in their lungs. No one knows where it came from. Coincidence? No. It came through the anomaly, probably on the creature's skin. Heard enough now? Can I get on with saving him?"

Connor stared at Stephen's prone body, wracked with indecision.

"Oh, for god's sake. I've had enough of this." Helen crossed the room in two strides and leaned over Stephen, pulling the sheets down to expose his chest.

"Don't!" Connor cried, as she raised the syringe.

Helen looked up at him, eyes suddenly intent. "I'm not going to hurt him, Connor. I want to save him. Believe me."

There was a second in which their eyes locked, and Connor realised that he'd made his decision. And then Helen brought the syringe down, straight into Stephen's lung. Quickly, she pulled another from her pocket and repeated the procedure on the other side of his torso.

It took less that a moment, and she was done, pulling the sheets back up.

"What was it?" Connor asked, feeling weak.

"Grapefruit seed extract," she muttered, pausing to stroke a hand over Stephen's forehead. "One of the most powerful fungicides there is."

Silence settled over the room. "How long-"

Helen straightened, "A couple of days – if his lungs aren't too damaged. And if I haven't just deflated one. I'm not a doctor, you know. Well, not that kind, anyway." She glanced towards the door. "I have to go."

"Wait, I-"

But she said no more, and a moment later the door clicked shut behind her.

xXx

To be continued…


	20. Chapter 20

This chapter (short as it is) is for Jo, whose emails encouraged me to get back into this story

This chapter (short as it is) is for Jo, whose emails encouraged me to get back into this story. I now know where it's going again... Sorry it's taken a while, but I really do intend to finish it. Hope you feel better now, Jo.

XXX

The sun was coming up. Jenny sat on a rock outside the cave, knees drawn up to her chin, arms wrapped around her ankles. Her clothes were in tatters now - her shirt had barely survived the mauling that had brought her here, and her trousers had begun to unravel through constant wear. She wasn't even sure she could remember exactly what colour her outfit had been before this nightmare had begun to play out. She tried not to wear her shoes unless she was going a reasonable distance - if they wore out, she'd really be handicapped.

Below her, the landscape was coming to life with the sun. Creatures of varying sizes were beginning to move toward the lake to drink and bathe. Jenny wished she could do the same - what she wouldn't give for a good hot shower and a bar of soap - but the best she could do was sluice herself with tepid water from the half-bottle that Nick had left her.

The thought of him caused her eyes to stray down the rocky hillside, towards the slight outcrop that hid the entrance to another cave - the one he'd chosen to sleep in for the past three (Was it three? Or more? Time was so fluid here.) weeks. For all Jenny knew, he'd been out hunting for hours already. He'd taken on the role of distant protector, and seemed to think that if he provided for every other need she might have, Jenny wouldn't notice that he couldn't bear to be in her company for more than a moment.

She still didn't understand what had happened. Jenny had thought they'd been getting on well - that they'd buried the differences that had existed between them before she'd been dragged through the anomaly. She'd even thought that they were becoming friends. But suddenly, without fanfare or explanation, he had withdrawn completely. One morning he'd woken up with a strange look on his face, and by that afternoon he'd muttered something about finding a cave of his own. He'd hardly spoken to her since, leaving Jenny to assume that his compassion had been an act - and now that she was out of danger, he'd dropped it, and her, like a hot coal. It occurred to her that she should confront him about it, to ask what she'd done wrong this time, or whether he just had a memory like an elephant and no capacity for forgiveness. But the thought wearied her.

Something cried out on the plain, and she squinted into the growing dawn light. A mother dinosaur was encouraging her baby to walk, nudging the infant with her nose to get it to stand. Jenny looked away, tears filling her eyes as loneliness cut into her ribs. The creatures here had more companionship than she did. The thought of spending the rest of her life alone was a weight that threatened to crush her.

XXX

"Have you got your socks?"

Stephen looked up at Connor with a frown, hands gingerly gripping the edge of the hospital bed as he angled his feet towards the floor. "Have I got my _what_?"

"Socks. I'm always losing mine when I stay somewhere new. Just thought I'd remind you," Connor said helpfully, pulling the small suitcase towards him.

"I think my socks are fine," Stephen said, wryly. "Anyway, Abby packed for me. I'm sure she hasn't forgotten anything." He looked around the small room. "It's not like we wouldn't notice leaving something in here, anyway."

"Okay, then. Ready? She's outside in the car." Connor patted the seat of the wheelchair that Stephen was convinced he could do without.

"I'll walk, thanks."

"Hospital policy. You have to use a wheelchair, at least until you're outside. Come on, it'll be cool! Let's see how fast it can go..."

"Uh - let's not, eh?" Stephen levered himself up, feeling the wastage of his muscles as his legs took his weight. The only thing between him and full strength was time and exercise, he knew, but still it was galling. Stephen wasn't used to physical weakness - his life, his livelihood, was built on the assumption of his personal fitness and stamina.

Swallowing his pride, he inched over to the wheelchair and eased himself down into it, coughing a little. The doctors had warned him that it would be a while until his lungs were back to normal, too. As far as Stephen was concerned, the sooner he was out of the hospital and able to get some fresh air into them, the better. He hated being sick, he hated being confined, and he especially hated lying around.

"Right," said Connor, cheerfully, "Let's get the hell out of Dodge!"

Abby was waiting outside, leaning against a four-wheel drive that all but dwarfed her. Her eyes were shielded by sunglasses against the mid-morning light, but she grinned as she spotted them.

"I might as well go home," Abby said, as they got nearer. "Looks like you've got your own transport!"

"Not a word," Stephen growled, as Connor slowed to a stop. "Just get me out of this thing."

"Are you sure you don't want to take it with you?"

"Shut up and give me a hand."

Abby grinned again, leaning forward to help him up, looping one small arm around his broad shoulders and squeezing briefly. "It's so good to see you up and around," she murmured. Stephen was sharply surprised by how much weight she had lost - Abby had always been on the wafer side of thin, but even through her leather jacket he could feel how bony she'd become.

Pulling back, he offered a crooked grin of his own. "Well, I couldn't rely on you two to look after yourself on your own, could I?"

If she heard the concern in his voice, she ignored it, turning to the Range Rover and opening the door as Connor took the chair back into A&E. "Like the new wheels?" she asked, nonchalantly.

"Very nice. Bit of an extravagant rental though, isn't it?" He leaned on her shoulder and levered himself up into the front seat.

Abby slammed the door shut behind him and skipped to the driver's side, glancing at him as she got settled. "Actually, I bought it." She shrugged at Stephen's expression. "It's far more useful than the people carrier we had. Who knows where the anomaly could open next, when it does? Anyway, it's second hand. A bargain, really. And I can sell it on when I need to."

"Abby..." Stephen was cut off by Connor's return.

The boy leaped into the back seat, shaking the solid chassis with his exuberance. "Home, James, and don't spare the horses!" He shouted, pausing for a moment, before slapping his palms against the leather shoulders of Stephen's seat. "And don't you get comfortable there, Mister. Today I'm giving you a treat because you're an invalid. But that seat is mine."

The journey back to Corrinuch was full of chatter and laughter. It couldn't have been more of a contrast to the hospital, and Stephen was caught up in the party atmosphere that seemed to have overtaken them. It was only as he looked at Abby and Connor's pale faces that he realised what a toll the last weeks - and his illness - had taken on them.

"Look, guys," he said, during a brief lull in laughter. "I just want to you know - the fact that you two were there for me - it means a lot. It really does."

Abby leaned across and squeezed his hand. "Well, we did think about going back to London, but the air up here is better," she joked.

"I'm serious. I know you must have had a hard time of it."

"Not as hard as you, Stephen. We really thought..." Abby tailed off painfully. "Anyway, we're just glad you're okay. Now all we need is for the anomaly to reopen and the Professor to bring Jenny home."

Stephen looked away, not wanting her to see the involuntary grimace that creased his features. She had to know as well as anyone how unlikely it was that they were still alive, even if the anomaly, which had been dormant for weeks, were to reopen. But it was too late - his unhappy thoughts must have been clear.

"You can't give up, Stephen. They need us - they need all of us."

"It's not that I want to give up, Abby..."

"Then don't, okay? Don't."

They had pulled to a stop outside the final gate, and Abby stared at him with wide, tired eyes.

"I won't," he said finally, after a long silence. "But-"

"No buts!" said Connor, loudly and with false joviality. "Come on - you should see the cake we made to welcome you back. It's awesome. And I want some."

XXX

TBC


	21. Chapter 21

xxx

Nick paused to transfer the catch to his other shoulder before he started the climb up to the caves. It wasn't exactly heavy, as there was no point catching more fish than they needed to eat each day, but it was cumbersome. He looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun. The rock formations were as still and silent as always, rising into the gathering twilight – for some reason it seemed as if the indigenous creatures deliberately left it alone. He had no scientific explanation for why that should be so – the caves offered perfect shelter, close to the water and easily defendable, which was why had chosen them in the first place.

If Stephen had been here, it would have been the sort of topic they would have enjoyed debating at length.

Pushing away thoughts of home, Cutter began to climb the rock face, watching his footing as he negotiated his way over the globules of rock. He wondered how long it had taken for this range to form, and how long it would take for the rain to obliterate it completely.

He and Jenny would be long gone by then, even if they lived into their eighties.

The thought made him shiver slightly, and he glanced up towards the cave where Jenny slept. There was no sign of her, and a pulse of unease flooded his heart. He pushed it away – there was no reason to think that anything untoward had happened. It was just that this was the first time he'd ventured far enough for her to be out of sight during his hunting expeditions. Usually he stayed within eyeline of the rock ridge.

The last three weeks had been bearable, but only just. He missed her, which he hadn't expected, and had made him realise how deeply entangled he was in something he'd had almost no inkling of. It made him even more convinced that his decision to stay as far away from her as possible was the right one, but it didn't make it any easier to accomplish – especially when he couldn't miss the hurt in her eyes when he cut their conversations short. What kind of life would this be for her? _But what else can I do?_ He asked himself.

Nothing, was the answer. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. If he didn't distance himself from this, it could only end badly – either for him, or for both of them. If he allowed the easy intimacy that had developed between them to continue, and then the anomaly re-opened, he'd be faced with returning Jenny to her fiancée and dealing with the consequences of loving her without hope. He didn't fancy that much. And if the anomaly didn't re-open and they let loneliness take over – the consequences didn't even bear thinking about. No, there was no choice.

Knowing these things didn't stop him thinking of her face on that morning he'd woken with her in his head. Smiling, free of make-up and with her hair loose, she'd looked as tender as he'd ever seen her. And she'd been looking at him.

Shaking his head as he pushed the memory away, Nick rubbed his free hand across his face. _Don't think about it. Just don't think about it._

"Do you want some help?" Her voice, coming from just above his head, startled him. He looked up to see Jenny standing on the ledge outside his cave, staring down at him with a guarded look in her eyes.

He offered a thin smile. "It's okay, thanks. They're not heavy."

Nick traversed the last few yards, coming to a stop by her side. He dropped his catch on the ground. "It's more fish, I'm afraid," he apologised. "I'd like to try to catch a mammal, but I haven't quite worked out how yet. I don't want to waste our bullets."

Jenny nodded. "The fish is good." She looked up at him, and he couldn't help the lurch in his heart as their eyes met. "You should show me how to fish, Nick. I'd like to make myself useful."

"How's your arm?"

She lifted it slowly, wincing a little. "I have a feeling it's as good as it's ever going to get. I can't lift it to my shoulder, but otherwise it's okay." She ran her fingers over the scars, which were healing well but would forever look angry, splayed across her shoulder beneath her torn shirt like impacted stars. Jenny smiled ruefully, "And I'll never be able to wear a sleeveless dress again."

Nick winced. "I'm sorry, I really am."

"What for? If not for you I'd be dead. And whatever you might think, I'm not vain enough to think it matters."

He caught the brittle barb, but didn't know what to reply. He wanted to tell her that she'd be beautiful even if she wore a black sack, but couldn't. Instead he dropped to a crouch and pulled out the knife Helen had left.

"Are you ready to eat?"

"Sure. I'll light the fire, shall I?"

They worked in silence, Nick gutting and skewering the fish as Jenny built and lit a small fire. As their food crackled over flame, Nick felt Jenny's eyes on his face. He ignored it as long as possible before looking up and raising an eyebrow.

"Everything okay?" He asked.

She smiled wryly, and he had to return it. Of course everything wasn't okay. It was doubtful anything would ever be "okay" again. As if reading his mind, Jenny said quietly, "I've given up on going home, you know. I think we have to accept that we're stuck here."

Nick stared into the fire, twisting one of the slim sticks that they used as skewers. "I don't want to give up."

"Neither do I," she said, calmly. "But it's been a month, and there has been no sign."

He nodded, and the silence thickened. Tendrils of smoke drifted into the falling dark.

"Are you ever going to forgive me?" she asked, suddenly, in the same calm voice.

"Forgive you?" He asked, nonplussed. "What would I need to forgive you for?"

She looked at the flames for a moment, before deliberately turning her head to meet his eyes. "For not being her."

His heart stuttered for a second, and then skipped several beats entirely. Nick blinked, and looked away, trying to steady himself. She didn't break the pause, and eventually he shook his head. "Jenny, I don't – I _never_ – blamed you for that. Not really. It's not your fault."

"Then why can't you stand to be near me? I'm the only person on Earth – on _Earth_, Nick! Is this how it's going to be? You're going to hold a grudge because of the face I was born with, even though it's the only one you're going to see, ever again?" She looked up at him again, still calm, still collected, but worn out. "I'm here," Jenny continued tiredly. "And she's not. I can't help that."

Nick stared at her, this time unable to break free of her gaze, and he was afraid she'd read everything in his eyes. He couldn't speak, so she filled the silence herself.

"Being here – especially the last three weeks – has made me rethink everything," she whispered, running a hand through her hair. "And I've realised how empty my life was until I started at the ARC. Even if we were to go back, things could never be the same. This job – it's made everything else pointless. Like Mark: how can I marry a man that I have to lie to every day? How can any of us ever be understood by anyone outside the programme, ever again? And now –" she looked up at him again, and this time he could see the faint shine of tears in her eyes, "now I'm stuck here with one of the few people who understands, and he won't even speak to me." A tear escaped, and she swiped it from her cheek, angrily. "Do you really hate me that much?"

Nick willed himself to stay still, while desperate to reach over and pull her towards him. "I don't hate you," he grated.

"Then tell me what's wrong, so that I can fix it."

He shook his head dumbly. "Jenny, this isn't something-"

"I miss you," she said, abruptly, voice breaking. "I know that sounds odd. But I don't like being alone… and here, I am _so _alone…"

Nick couldn't help it. He moved, stretching out one arm and slipping it around her, pulling her towards him until her head rested beneath his chin. Nick sank his face in her hair, squeezing his eyes shut.

"We're going to be okay," he promised. "I swear, Jenny. I'm never going to give up trying to get you home. And I'm sorry I've been so distant. I'm just – trying to cope."

"With me," she muttered. "Trying to cope with me."

"Yes," he admitted. "But not for the reasons you said. I just-" he searched for something he could say that wouldn't unravel him further. "I don't know. I've just got to try to do things right. And you – I don't always find that easy around you. And that's not your fault," he added quickly, "but it just makes things… complicated."

"Damn that Claudia Brown," came her voice, muffled against his neck.

He laughed, though there wasn't much humour in the sound. "There's more of her in you than you realise, you know. Maybe a little too much."

Jenny pulled away to look up at him, her face very close. There was something fiery in her eyes, and Nick felt his heart contract as he involuntarily held her tighter. Her gaze flickered to his lips and back again, and it took everything he had to break the tension. He glanced at the fire, and swore.

"Shit – the fish…"

He pulled away, grabbing the skewer and pulling their food from the flames. The flesh was horribly burnt, and Nick poked at the remains dubiously. He looked back at Jenny, and was relieved to see her composing herself. She looked at their dinner with a wrinkled nose before glancing up at Nick with a grin.

"Can't we just order a pizza?" She asked.

xxx

TBC


	22. Chapter 22

xxx

That night, within Corunnich's peaceful walls, Stephen had his best night's sleep in days. It was as if everything slipped away in that wide, empty space around the house, allowing him to give up thinking about his friends lost in the past, or that Helen's intervention was the only thing that had saved his life.

In the morning, though, his first thoughts were of Nick, and where he was right now. That was, of course, the wrong question to ask... if Nick were anywhere at this moment, it was buried somewhere in the Triassic strata of rock deep below Corunnich.

With a sigh, Stephen eased himself out of bed and pulled on a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a sweater. It was early, and the sun hadn't yet risen. He still wasn't the first up, though - he could hear movement downstairs, and the smell of fresh coffee floated up the stairs.

He discovered Abby in the kitchen. She was fully dressed in walking gear, still wearing her heavy boots and a black wool beanie pulled down over her ears. She turned as Stephen entered the kitchen, and grinned over the mug she held up to her lips.

"Morning. I didn't think we'd see you until much later."

"Old habits die hard... where have you been?"

Abby poured him a mug and pushed it across the table before sliding into a seat. "Just doing the rounds." His frown must have told her he didn't know what she was talking about, and she went on, "We've been doing it since the ARC ordered the soldiers on sentry duty back to London. Every four hours one of us goes up to check on the anomaly site."

Stephen frowned. "Why not just use the detector?"

Abby shrugged. "They confiscated it as ARC property. Connor's been trying to build a new one, but getting the materials isn't easy. And we've been using a radio, like we did to begin with... but the range is too short. So we go up there to check."

Stephen coughed, the residue of the infection wracking his lungs. "There's still an Ornithosuchus up there."

Abby shook her head. "Didn't Connor tell you? The soldiers got it. It came back over the ridge towards Badenyon."

"Probably trying to find its way home."

"Yup. Anyway, we don't need to worry about it anymore. There's nothing up there but sheep."

Stephen put his mug down, trying to work out what to say. He'd promised her last night that he wouldn't give up, and it was clear that she and Connor were determined to wait as long as they could for the anomaly to reopen.

"Before you say anything," said Abby, watching him, "Connor and I are going to stay here for as long as it takes. I've given notice at the zoo, and it's not as if Connor has anything to go back for if the team's not together."

"Abby..."

"I'll understand if you don't want to stay," she continued, "Connor and I talked about it earlier, and he's right. It's not fair to expect you to, especially after what you've been through. But we won't change our minds. I'm convinced it'll re-open at some point, and I want to be here when that happens... whatever we find when it does."

Stephen picked up his mug again, and took a large mouthful. He could already feel the caffiene hitting his system. "Nick's my best friend," he told her, "I'll do everything I can to get him back. Even if there isn't actually anything I can do."

Abby smiled. "I knew you'd say that. Thanks. Connor's great, but it'll be nice to have some adult conversation for a change..."

They drank in silence for a few moments, Stephen turning things over in his head. He couldn't help thinking they would be waiting in vain - but he owed it to his friend - to his friends - to be here, whatever the outcome.

"What about Helen?" he asked, "Any sign of her?"

"No, thank god. I've sworn to myself I'll rip my face off next time she shows up here." Abby looked at him a little suspiciously. "You don't want to see her, do you?"

"Of course not. But she might have some information - from what Helen said to you, it sounded to me as if she knew more that she was letting on."

Abby nodded. "Yeah, the thought had crossed my mind. It's not like we can page her, though, is it? God only knows where she is. Or when she is."

Stephen grimaced. "Well, if there's one thing I know about Helen," he said, "it's that she always turns up eventually."

"Well, I guess until she does, we keep waiting," Abby shrugged. "I doubt she'll want to help us though, even if she knows a way she could. She seemed very keen on convincing me the anomaly would never re-open."

"What could she possibly gain by keeping Nick where he is?"

"I don't know. But she tried to persuade him to go with her once before."

"Me, too," Stephen reminded her.

"Right. So maybe she really has had enough of being alone. Maybe she's going to force him to stay with her."

"Hmm. I'm not sure I buy that. The only thing bigger than Helen's ego is her pride. She won't want to have to force him to stay with her."

Abby sighed, getting up to pour them more coffee. "Well, I can't think of any other reason. And she's got to know that having two stray humans somewhere out of their time is bloody dangerous."

Stephen took the proffered mug, thinking about Abby's statement. "Where's Connor, anyway?" he asked. "Still asleep?"

"Nah - he's taken the Range Rover to Dufftown. It's the closest town with a hardware store. He wants to have another go at the anomaly detector."

"Guess it's you and me on patrol, then?"

"Nope," said Abby, looking at her watch. "You get to stay right here and get on with recouperating. I'll go out again in a bit."

"Great. So you got me out of one prison to keep me in another."

"Don't be such a grouch. You can start putting supplies together - we need to be ready when it does reopen. Guns, ropes, medical equipment..."

"Sure. They'll all be easy to acquire out here in the middle of nowhere."

Abby lifted her chin towards a yellow pages and a telephone, both standing on the floor beside the kitchen sofa. "There you go. You'll have to do it the old-fashioned way, but at least you can do it in comfort."

"You've thought of everything, huh?"

"You bet. Oh, and there's food in the fridge. I figured you could cook dinner for us hungry workers, too..."

xxx

They went back to sleeping side by side that night, though Jenny would remember it better afterwards for being the night the storms began. It started as a low rumble in the distance. Nick thought it might be a stampede - perhaps a pack of large herbivores disturbed by a predator - but the sound gradually rolled closer, and with it came the rain.

They'd experienced prehistoric downfalls before, but then it had always been a welcome patter of lazy, warm drops. Now it lashed to the ground in an icy frenzy that seemed to go on forever. Before, they had thought of the rain as something positive - a chance to collect fresher water - but now it pelted down like shards of ice, hard enough to bruise. By morning the lake had already risen by several centimetres, so concentrated was the downpour, and even though they'd eaten nothing the night before, Jenny begged Nick not to go out hunting. The sandy earth around the lake had become one huge swamp, and she was terrified that if he got stuck he'd be easy prey. Instead, they sat at the opening of the cave and watched the landscape turn to slush in the maelstrom. The sky was dark and livid, hanging low over their heads as lightning began to slash the air, cutting it into stark sections as efficiently as any knife. The electricity was almost palpable, and the storm moved in their direction so swiftly that it was upon them before they knew it. Rivulets opened up on their rocky hiding place, sluicing past them and down, rushing faster and faster towards the rising lake.

"I don't like this," Nick said, shouting over the noise. "I think we're going to have to move."

"You think the water's going to come in?"

"I think there's a good chance," he replied, before standing up. "Stay here - I'll be back in a minute."

"Nick-" she said, reaching out a hand, but he'd gone before it could make contact, stepping out into the murk.

He vanished immediately, and though Jenny strained to see where he had gone, the conditions were such that she could hardly see beyond the lip of their cave. Looking down, she saw that puddles were already beginning to form in the uneven floor, and knew that Nick must be right. If the rain continued, the cave would flood.

She began to gather up their meagre store of equipment, cramming it back into the bag that Helen had given them. They couldn't afford to leave anything behind, and Jenny had a feeling that when they moved, it would have to be fast.

When Nick reappeared five minutes later, she was ready to go. He was soaked through, his already ragged clothes completely saturated. He was shivering with cold, but when Jenny held out their only blanket for him, he took it and wrapped it around her.

"There's a flash flood building up there," he shouted, as the rain began falling even more heavily. "We're going to have to head for the forest to find shelter, and hope the water doesn't get further than the plain. Are you ready? be careful - the rocks are as slick as ice."

"I'm ready," she said, "Let's go."

He rested a hand on her good shoulder before turning and heading back out into the storm. Jenny was only seconds behind him, and though she'd been prepared for the cold rain, she wasn't ready for the wind. It gusted along the rock face in a blast that almost knocked her off balance immediately. Nick turned and caught her arm, steadying her before she could slip. He shouted something to her, but his words were lost to the lashing air. She simply nodded, following as he turned and continued down the treacherous hill side. The rock formations that had become so familiar now looked viciously alien, silhouetted against the cracks of lightning like meanacing figures waiting to pounce. Squinting into the dark, Jenny wondered what creatures were abroad in this weather, but could see nothing beyond Nick's form, a few feet in front of her.

Suddenly, a new sound joined the cacophony around them. Turning, Jenny looked up the hillside, and the sight that greeted her froze her to the spot. Nick had been right about the flash flood - it had already begun. The rivulets were fast becoming full and raging rivers. A huge wall of water was bearing down on them, dragging tree roots and loose rocks in its wake. The growing wave rose out of the darkness like a thousand white, stampeding horses.

Jenny felt Nick grab her hand, pulling her after him. He'd given up shouting over the roar of the maelstrom, but Jenny didn't need to be told that they had to get to higher ground. They'd nver make it down the hillside and across the plain before the flood engulfed them completely. He was heading for a sharp outcrop of rock that jutted straight out of the rock face at an impossible angle. Halfway up it was a narrow ledge, and as they reached the base, Nick stopped, turning to her. The rain was falling so hard and so fast that she could hardly open her eyes. He reached out, putting his hands to her face and bringing his mouth very close to her ear.

"...go up first..." she was able to make out. "Go _NOW_."

He let her go and pushed her toward the rock, bending slightly to give her a leg up towards the first foothold. Jenny gripped as best she could, but the water was cascading off the rockface, and within seconds her fingers were icy cold. Still, she knew they had no choice. Discarding the now-saturated blanket, Jenny dragged herself up, inch by inch. The roar of the flood was inescapable, filling her ears and mind as it rushed closer and closer.

It felt as if she clung to that rock for hours as the water bore down on them, but it must have only been minutes at the most. She looked down, and saw Nick on her heels, struggling to find a foothold.

And then the water hit, more powerful than a freight train and travelling twice as fast. Jenny had just reached out towards the ledge when she felt it, splashing up against her legs as it collided with the outcrop on which they clung. She tried to drag her legs up, but the water was numbing, dragging her down. She looked down, and saw Nick buffeted by the water, still too far down to be out of its reach. He lifted his head, and in her blurred vision his features were suddenly in front of her with crystal clarity. For a second, all she could see were his eyes, holding her fast.

"Nick," she screamed, over the roar of the water, "_NICK_!"

And then he was gone.

xxx

TBC


	23. Chapter 23

Author's note: I know I'm taking forever over this, and I know a lot of what I'm writing is just ramble. Sorry, but the advantage of fanfiction is that you can write what you like, ad infinitum – so that's what I'm doing, and getting some character practice in at the same time. I shall wrap it up soon…

xxx

By lunchtime, Stephen had managed to source most of the supplies he needed. He'd arranged for expedited delivery for everything, which meant that – providing the drivers could find Corrunich – his orders should arrive the next day.

At a loss for anything else to do, and having called Abby for an update, he took to prowling the house. Still sore, he stayed downstairs, wandering slowing into each room. For the first time, he really absorbed the place. It surprised him: Stephen had thought he'd known pretty much all there was to know about Nick Cutter. Clearly, though, there were sides to his friend he had never been allowed to see.

The house was cosy, full of things chosen for their comfort rather than their style. That was no surprise – Cutter's university office was the same – but what was unexpected was the art dotted around the white-washed walls. It was predominantly modern, though here and there he caught sight of a Pre-Raphaelite print. The abstracts made him think of Helen: sparse, perfunctory, functional. The Pre-Raphaelite's must be Nick's choice, he decided – they had an air of chaos to them that fit better with the person he knew.

Tucked here and there were masks, too, collected from travels he hadn't known his friend had made, and in a small office off the kitchen, he found what must be Nick's den. It was as gloriously disorganised as that other room that Stephen used to spend so much time in – piles of books, sheaves of paper, bones, artefacts and aboriginal trinkets cluttered the space. Stepping inside, Stephen ran his fingers across the edge of the old desk – it looked antique, and had probably belonged to Nick's father before him. It was large, filling the space, and under its solid top were two thick drawers.

Curious, he pulled one open. It was, of course, as messy as the desk top. But nevertheless, something caught his eye. It was a silver-framed photograph, placed face down atop a pile of old receipts. Stephen hesitated a moment before taking it out and turning it over. The silver was clean, and gleaming, as if, before it had been placed in the drawer, someone had polished it regularly.

Stephen sank slowly into the old, creaking leather chair. In his hands, Nick and Helen were frozen in time, framed by sunshine and the dapple of the green leaves around them. They were leaning against a tree, their eyes only for each other as they laughed together. The air of the image was intimacy, and Stephen realised with a jolt that it was a wedding portrait. Helen's hair, longer then, was twisted up and fastened with a flower. She wore a long dress, white, but not fancy – it fell to the ground in one straight, elegant line. In one hand she held a small bunch of white roses. Nick was dressed in a black dinner suit, another white rose in his buttonhole. His two hands clasped Helen's free one, and Stephen was struck by how comfortable they seemed. If not for the clothing and the staged setting, he could have mistaken it for a friend taking a lucky snap. But even with the attendant pomp and ceremony of a wedding day, the couple managed to seem oblivious to their audience. They were together, the photograph said, and whatever else happened around them was irrelevant.

"That was always his favourite photograph," came her voice, from the doorway.

Stephen shot out of the chair, turning to see Helen, leaning casually against the jamb. She waved at one of the bookshelves, level with the desk. "He used to have it there."

She reached for the frame, and Stephen felt the rather absurd desire to keep it from her. Collecting himself, he held it out. "How did you get in?" he asked.

Helen took the picture, looking at it thoughtfully. "It wasn't difficult, Stephen," she said absently. "I've still got a key." Glancing up again, she dropped the picture on the desk. "Question is, what are _you _doing here?"

"Waiting for the anomaly to reopen."

"You're wasting your time."

"So you keep saying." He pushed past her, walking back towards the kitchen. "I don't believe you, Helen. I don't trust you."

She followed him, snagging an apple from a bowl on the table and dropping into the sofa. "I saved your life," she reminded him, taking a bite.

"Yes, and I'm grateful. But I've long since learned that everything you do has an ulterior motive, Helen. So what is it this time?"

Helen sat up straighter, a flicker of annoyance passing her face as he sat at the kitchen table. "You've spent too much time with Nick."

"And you never spent enough. What are you doing here? What do you want? You're very eager to convince us that the anomaly won't reopen. Why?"

"Because it won't," she snapped. "And really, Stephen, you can't believe that they're still alive, even if it did? You're smarter than that."

Stephen looked at his hands. "I agree it's unlikely. But I have to hope."

"Then you're a fool."

"And you're a cold-hearted bitch," he said, standing as the fury mounted in his heart. "I can't leave him as easily as you did. If he's dead, then fine – I'll bring his body home, if nothing else. But I won't leave him, Helen, and if you were half the human being he is then neither would you."

She stood, stalking towards him, eyes flashing. Despite himself, he felt a stir of something. Helen Cutter was a hard, hard woman, but he remembered her – his _body_ remembered her – and it was a difficult memory to shake. She came close, and Stephen turned away, gritting his teeth. The photograph came back to him, and he wondered how he could have missed what must have still been between them when he first met The Cutters. That was love, and more than love, it was a bond… a bond that he had interrupted, unintentionally. It shamed him in a way that Nick's anger had not, and he hated himself for it.

"That place is a killing zone, Stephen," Helen said, coming close enough to fill his space. "You saw what sort of creature came through – that's not even scratching the surface of what's out there. And I-" her voice cracked, slightly, taking Stephen by surprise, "I don't want you to die. That's all. I don't want to lose anyone else."

Despite himself, he turned, affected by her words as she continued, and he thought he might even have spied tears in her eyes.

"Don't let guilt ruin you, Stephen," she said. "What we did – you don't owe him your life for that. He wouldn't want it. And if you let Connor and Abby pay for that too…" Helen tailed off.

Stephen watched her for a moment. She was right, of course. Part of his willingness to go along with Abby and Connor's plan was guilt. He'd failed his friend, and now he wanted to make up for it. But there were other reasons, surely, for believing there was a chance? Surely it wasn't only his conscience that made him hope for a better outcome?

Helen startled him by placing a hand on his arm and stepping even closer. She smelled of rain and grass, and of the leather gilet she wore. He looked down at her, caught in her beauty despite everything that had happened. Btu her tears had dried quickly, and he couldn't shake the feeling that they had been for show.

Shaking himself, he stepped away, severing the visceral connection before it had a chance to make an impression on his heart. "I can't leave him," he repeated. "I have to believe there's a chance. I have to."

xxx

TBC


	24. Chapter 24

Author's note: Jenny screams a lot in this one, but under the circumstances, I think I would too… I also know that I use swearing, and perhaps some people would prefer I didn't, but to be honest I think it's quite unrealistic not to. This is as strong as the language will get.

Xxx

He was gone in an instant, swallowed up by the deluge still crashing down the rock face.

"Nick!" Jenny screamed again, helpless with fear and anguish. The water kept coming, rushing around and over her. She was already numb from the icy torrent, and there was nothing to do but hoist herself onto the outcrop that had been their target.

She stared down into the seething water, searching for any sign of his body. She couldn't believe he was gone – one minute, he was there, his hands touching his face, and then… nothing.

Jenny felt herself sob, a wrenching sensation that tore at her throat. He couldn't die like this, not after all they'd been through – not after coming so far to find her. Not when he'd put her first, perhaps even knowing he didn't have enough time…

A flash of something far below caught her eye. She turned towards it, but it had gone, tumbled over by the current. And then she saw it again – it had to be him, it had to be – a flash of man-made colour in the violent, thrashing landscape. Jenny couldn't see his face – he was obviously being dragged along, too fast to keep his head above water.

That was the only explanation she could countenance, because otherwise he was already dead and the empty vessel of his body was merely a plaything for the flood.

Jenny stood up, bracing herself against the rock beside her, and screamed his name again. Turning, she looked back up the rocks at the water still cascading down, and realised it wasn't going to let up any time soon. Looking back towards the lake, she saw him again, more clearly this time as the current of the flood met the water already on the plain. The lake had doubled in size, reaching all but to the forest, and as flood water reached the base of the rockface it was as if a strange peace broke out. Hell was still pouring down the mountain, but once it reached the lake level it seemed to lose its anger, swelling out and disappearing into gentle ripples.

In the midst of this arrested fury, Nick floated, still and silent.

"NICK!" Jenny screamed again, caught between joy and horror. Her fingers were so, so cold, and she could hardly feel her legs. And she knew there was only one thing to do.

Bracing herself, she sat back down, letting the water rip at her legs. Shutting her eyes against the inevitable pain, she let the torrent pull her towards it, feeling the bleak comfort of the rock torn away.

She lost her breath immediately. Jenny had thought she'd been cold before, but this was a new depth of ice. It shocked her system so thoroughly that her lungs froze, and she gasped, which only succeeded in her sucking in a mouthful of water. The current was so strong that she'd already lost any sense of which way was up – her equilibrium was completely shot the moment the water grabbed her and turned her over. Jenny tried to keep her good arm around her head, to protect herself from the rocks as she rushed towards the lake. Her back scraped against the hard surface and white-hot pain lacerated her senses.

The pain woke her sluggish brain from the stupor it had protected itself with, and she kicked, desperate to find air. She broke the surface into a roar of noise and gasped before the current gripped her legs and dragged her back under, dashing her against another rock so hard she nearly lost consciousness. Over and over she rolled, cold, so cold, hurt, so hurt, and so, so tired…

And then the current let her go. It was like a vice being loosened – one moment her legs were held something as tangible as steel, and the next they were free. For a split second she could do nothing, and then Jenny kicked towards the surface, breaking the water's skin ten meters from where the flood still poured down the rockface.

Her back was alive with a fire of pain and her head rang with the blow it had taken, but she forced herself to swim.

"Nick!" Jenny shouted, her voice sounding weak in the vast wilderness.

She couldn't see him, and now that she was in the water herself, Jenny couldn't work out where he must be now. _Please don't let him have sunk, _she whispered to herself, _please, please, please…_

But he was still on the surface, floating face up, his lips already blue. Jenny reached him, seeing the bloody gash on his cheek, and forced herself to check for a pulse, but she could find none. She tried to give him mouth to mouth, but realised it was hopeless – his lungs were probably choked with water.

Sobbing freely now, from cold, pain and desperation, Jenny hooked her good arm around his neck and began dragging Nick towards the shore. Thank god she'd taken those swimming lessons after the incident with the prehistoric shark. She kicked, but her legs felt like lead, and the shore seemed as far away as it ever had.

"P-please h-hold o-on," she begged, through lips that could hardly part for cold. "P-please, N-nick, please…"

Her tears, incongruously hot, mingled with the still-falling rain as she struggled as fast as she could towards the shore. _Just a little further… just a little further…_

Afterwards, Jenny would wonder why the thing didn't come at them faster. She decided that things probably happened a lot more quickly than she remembered, not least because Nick still wasn't breathing at that point. At the time, though, it all seemed to unfold in ultra-slow motion, like a film being played at quarter speed.

Her entire attention was on getting Nick to the shore, but gradually, out of the corner of her eye, Jenny became aware of something else besides them in the water. Her brain had edited it out of the landscape as a log, and too late she realised that it was getting closer – and was far, far, larger and more determined than a log.

When her head finally snapped around to look in its direction, it was close enough for her to see the snout… Long and pointed, her immediate impression was alligator, though at least three times the size of any she'd ever seen on television. It kept below the water, it's dark scaly backbone occasionally breaking the surface as it neared.

"Oh god… oh god… oh god…" She kicked harder, thrashing around in the water, but knew immediately she was making them an easy target. Jenny felt like screaming again, so deep was her despair. The edge of the water was still some 30 yards away.

A dim light went of in her head.

"Gun… where's the gun…" her teeth were chattering so hard she could barely see straight. The handgun hadn't been in the pack on her back – Nick must have taken it with him.

Struggling to stay afloat, she reached down to the waistband of his ragged jeans, feeling until her hand brushed the metal. A sense of triumph overwhelmed her as she dragged it out, despite knowing that it may not even fire.

Pointing it towards the creature, Jenny thanked her lucky stars for the right-wing father who had made she knew how to handle a weapon. Her arm was shaking with cold and fatigue, but she forced it up as far as she could.

She let loose the long scream that had been building as she fired at its head. Her voice echoed in the empty landscape and a deep, ugly satisfaction settled in her heart as the creature's blood began to stain the prehistoric water. It sank out of sight, but Jenny wasn't fool enough to assume it was dead. With a new determination she turned towards the shore and swam with all her might.

Jenny's feet hit earth and she immediately scrambled upright, holding on to Nick and pulling him on to dry ground. She was terrified by his face, by the grey pallor of his skin and the blue that tainted his lips. Dropping to her knees she straightened his limbs and tipped his head back.

The moment her lips touched his, she thought she'd already lost him, but she breathed into him anyway, and a moment later started heart compressions. Anything could have attacked them right then, but nothing was in her mind but getting this man to breathe. She didn't know how long she kept at it, hope gradually giving way to despair as his body refused to respond.

"_COME ON_," she screamed at him as her sixth attempt failed, "Don't you leave me here alone, you _bastard_! God damn it, Cutter, _DON'T YOU LEAVE ME HERE_!"

_Terror and anger and grief and anguish and horror and love and hate and the emptiness of the world…_

She screamed again, tears and rage sealing her vision as she slammed her fist down on his chest.

Nick coughed, a great, heaving action as a slough of water rose out of his lungs and spouted from his mouth.

"Oh… oh…" Jenny, blind with emotion, rolled him away from her and on to his side as he continued to spew out water. She put one hand under his head, and, resting her head against his sodden shoulder, cried helplessly as he came back to life.

xxx

TBC


	25. Chapter 25

Author's note: Really short bit today, sorry. I wanted to try and get inside Helen's head, though I'm not sure I managed it properly. She's a difficult character to inhabit. Or she is for me, anyway.

Xxx

The landscape was empty, and the wind, though relatively calm, was cold. Helen sat cross-legged under a tuft of heather high up on the hill above Corrunich, and watched a tendril of smoke rise from its chimney into the clouded grey sky. It was getting on for 8pm, and she'd seen both Connor and Abby return some time ago, arriving in separate directions – Connor by Land Rover and Abby by foot. She assumed they'd be sitting around having dinner by now, and wondered if she'd be the topic of conversation. Would Stephen tell them about her visit, or would he keep quiet?

She'd been disappointed by his attitude, although beneath his determination Helen had sensed something else. Desire? The thought made her smile. Where there was desire, there was hope.

_He'll come around,_ she told herself, attention caught for a moment by a swallow dipping low in the twilight. _You can win him around. Far easier than you can Nick, anyway. _

Thinking of her husband also made her think of the photograph Stephen had handed her that afternoon. Looking at herself as she was back then had been surprisingly moving. How different she'd been. How… _normal_. Everything had been so easy, so comfortable. She'd had her career, a nice home, and Nick. There was a time when Helen hadn't thought she'd ever need anything else. Occasionally – very occasionally, like now, here on this hilltop, nostalgia threatened to make her wistful for that period in ther life. If she could go back, would she?

_Yes, probably…_

That treacherous thought dissatisfied her, because there was no going back, not now and not ever again. She'd become bored by her contentment, and without her asking, life had handed her a joker card to end every game she'd ever played. The anomalies had shown her what was out there, what was possible, and now Helen had touched the past and seen the future, she would never again find the contentment that had so bored her at the time.

She regarded the landscape with annoyance. It was unchanged – in fact, as far as Helen could make out, _everything_ was unchanged, which could mean one of three things. One, that Nick had more self control than she'd credited him with. Two, that both Nick and Jenny had been killed before they could make a significant impact on pre-history; or that three, one couple deposited in the streams of time had made no difference to the overall outcome of human evolution.

Helen suspected that the third answer was the most likely. Even if Nick and Jenny had produced children, their line could have died out before it had had a chance to get going, even without the attendant social mores that would plague them in a way that had not affected their original ancestors.

Truth be told, Helen hadn't really seriously considered such a bold attempt to alter the evolution of the world before he opportunity had fallen into her lap. Now, she realised that if she truly wanted to make a difference in that area, she would have to find another way – or at least, another couple.

She was still convinced it would be worth the difficulty. Every time she thought about it, Helen came up with another wonder that could be unlocked. If the human race evolved earlier than it did, where could it have been by now? What if the library at Alexandria hadn't burned down? The Greeks had already calculated the forces and power needed to reach the moon, with nothing more than a rudimentary ruler, a knowledge of mathematics and a sharp mind. If those calculations hadn't been incinerated, what then? By the same token, if educated people went back to the beginning and started again… Surely there was nothing that they couldn't do?

Helen looked at her watch. She only ever wore one when she was back in the present. There was really no point when she was travelling alone in the past, and in any case, the only models that would survive travel through an anomaly were digital, which Helen found vulgar and childish. But when she came back, invariably the first thing she did was buy a timepiece. It had become an obsession – and with good reason, as without a reliable way to tell the time in the modern world, she could be stranded here longer than intended.

There were five days until the anomaly would reopen, and between now and then she needed to get a few things straightened out. Five days gave Helen enough time to go back down to London, where she could rest up at the old house. She was tired, and perhaps al even a little homesick. Besides, she knew that Nick had kept her old clothes – his sentimental streak winning over reason once again – and she could do with a change of outfit.

Helen stood, the wind ruffling her short hair. It was a long walk to Tomintoul, but with a bit of luck she'd be able to find a convenient car to steal on the way.

TBC


	26. Chapter 26

xxx

Abby rounded the corner of the barn, heading towards its old double doors. In one hand she carried a plate of food, and with the other she held her wool scarf closer to her chest. The weather had turned chill in the night, a sign that summer was coming to an end.

She pulled the old door open, the musty air of the barn rolling over her sluggishly as she stepped inside.

"Connor?" She shouted, "Are you there?"

It was a stupid question, she knew – he'd hardly left the barn for three days. He was determined to make his new version of the anomaly detector work.

"Connor?" Abby shouted again, making her way gingerly past the various odds and ends of heavy equipment strewn around the barn floor. Connor had cleared himself a small work area at the far end, using an old desk he'd found under a pile of junk. She could hear music playing faintly from one of the radios he hadn't yet gutted, and the fizz of a soldering iron as he worked. Stepping into the small circle of light cast by the anglepoise on his workbench, Abby saw him hunched over his latest version of the detector. It was far smaller than the others he'd tried so far.

"Connor!" She shouted again, and he turned with a start, clearly hearing her for the first time.

"Abby! Sorry, didn't see you there."

"I figured," she said, holding up the plate she carried. "I thought you might be able use some lunch."

"Ahh – thanks," Connor said, his eye lighting up. "I'm starving."

Abby perched on a rickety old stool beside the desk and watched as Connor began to wolf down the macaroni cheese that Stephen had made. When not working out to rebuild his muscle strength, Stephen had become their defacto cook, which Abby was grateful for. It wasn't that she _couldn't_ cook. It just wasn't high on her list of favourite pastimes.

"When did you last eat?" she asked, watching the way Connor shovelled in the pasta. He wasn't the most elegant eater at the best of times, but right now he seemed ravenous.

"Uh… dunno…" he muttered around a mouthful. "We had dinner last night, didn't we?"

Abby sighed, "_We_ did. _You_ didn't, though – you told us to leave a plate out for you, which was still there this morning. You're going to make yourself ill if you carry on like this, Connor."

"Yeah well, you're a fine one to talk," he retorted. "When was the last time you had more than four hours sleep at a stretch? You're up on those hills more than you are off them, and it'll be that way until I can get this thing to work." Connor looked up at her. "Any sign? I'm guessing not…"

Abby shook her head. Her latest jaunt up the hill had left her tired and depressed. She'd lost count of the trips she'd made over the "ladder" and not once had there been any sign that the anomaly had reopened, even for a second.

Connor must have sensed her mood, because he reached over and patted her on the forearm. "I reckon I'll have this licked in a couple more days," he said. "I've got a good feeling about this one." Connor indicated the heap of wires and circuitry in front of them "I've expanded the wave resonance and narrowed the bandwidth. It should mean that we can pick up a signal from here."

"How will you know it's working?" Abby asked, feeling bloody-minded. "If it's not there, it just won't show anything, will it?"

Connor looked crestfallen. "You aren't giving up hope, are you? Come on, Abby. If you start wavering, none of us will make it. Least of all Jenny and the Professor," he added for good measure.

"Sorry," she said with a sigh. "Just having a bad day, I guess."

Connor nodded as if he knew exactly what she was talking about. "We'll have a good one soon," he promised her. "Just as soon as I can get this thing up and running."

Xxx

The first thing that occurred to Nick was a blur of sound. It came at him from all directions, like a bright light flooding his brain. Nothing was distinct. Instead, he was buffeted by the noise as surely as he had been by the water.

_But I'm not in the water,_ he told himself, confused. _Am I?_

He tried to open his eyes, but they felt as heavy as lead. It cost him every ounce of strength he had to crack his eyelids just a fraction. Light blinded him.

Gratefully, he faded back into oblivion.

The second time he woke he noticed an absence of cold. He opened his eyes, more easily this time, but couldn't focus. Light danced in his vision as he tried to work out where he was. Confusion rolled over him like a wave as his eyes adjusted. His face was dappled by sunlight shining through leaves. For a second he thought he was at home in his garden in London, and had dozed off as he often did on a Saturday afternoon, under the old oak tree. But then he tried to move, and pain shot through his lower legs.

With the shock returned everything else. He wasn't at home in London. He was somewhere in what would eventually become Scotland in the Triassic.

He must have uttered a sound, because he felt sudden movement behind him and heard Jenny's voice in his ear.

"Nick? Are you awake? No-" she told him quickly, as he clumsily tried to twist around to see her, "don't move."

Nick glanced down as he felt something slip from around his torso. He was lying on the ground on his side, and he seemed to be covered by a blanket of something green. Leaves? There was more movement, and a moment later air rushed along his back. He felt an absence, a void where there had previously been something solid, though he didn't know what it was.

The pain in his leg subsided, and as his brain cleared Nick realised it was coming from his ankle. He rolled onto his back, carefully, and looked for Jenny. She crouched a few feet away, with her back to him. He blinked, eyes still fuzzy.

"Jenny?" he asked, his voice sounding like a hoarse whisper.

She half turned, looking back over her shoulder, and he realised she was pulling on her shirt. Mind still blank with confusion, he watched it slide down over her bare back.

Jenny moved back towards him, a smile lighting her face as she looked down and briefly held her hand to his forehead. "I'm so glad you're awake," she said, relief flooding her voice. "I thought maybe you had a head injury, and then we really would have been done for."

Nick looked around. They seemed to be in a small gully, which had been lined with large, thick leaves. He was covered in a layer of them, too, and as he looked up, Nick realised Jenny had pulled several branches over their heads to create some shelter. But how had they got here? The last thing Nick remembered was being in the water as it pulled him down the rockface.

"I don't remember anything," he said, searching her face for answers. "How did I get here?" He winced as his ankle throbbed again.

"I dragged you, I'm afraid," she looked guilty, "so I probably made your foot worse. But I didn't have a choice – we couldn't stay on the shore, it was too exposed."

"You dragged me?" he repeated. "But how did I get out of the water?"

Jenny shrugged. "Guess I'm stronger than I look."

Nick stared at her, brain still befuddled but clear on one thing. She must have saved his life. He reached out, taking one of her hands.

"Thank you," he said quietly. She squeezed his hand.

"Well, Cutter, now we're even," Jenny said, brusque tone belied by the warmth of her smile. "And don't go expecting any molly-coddling. As far as I can work out, your ankle is only sprained, and if you don't have a head injury, you should be fine in no time."

It was somehow reassuring to see a flash of the 'old' Jenny. Nick grinned as he let go of her hand and struggled to lever himself up. Some of his leaf covering dropped away, and it dawned on him that he was naked.

"Um… Jenny?"

"Sorry," she said, blushing very slightly. "But we were both wet through, and I had to get you warm. Our clothes are dry now. Hold on and I'll get yours."

She went to move, but Nick stopped her, the fragment of a disconnected image suddenly resurfacing in his mind. "Turn around," he told her.

"Why?"

He looked her in the eye, and repeated his command softly. "_Turn around_."

Reluctantly, she did as she was told. Reaching out, he touched her tattered shirt, his fingers running gently over her warm skin as he pushed it up to reveal the long, shallow gash and violent bruising that discoloured her back.

"It's okay," she said, still turned away from him. "If I was going to get sick, I would have by now."

For a second he couldn't say anything, imagining her in pain, dragging the heavy lump of his unconscious body god knows how far to the relative safety of this den. He swallowed, tracing his fingers back down her spine as he let Jenny's shirt drop back into place.

"Jenny Lewis," he said, voice hoarse, "if –_ when_ – we get home, I think I owe you dinner."

"Damn right you do, Professor," she said. "And it had better not be bloody fish."

xxx

To be continued.


	27. Chapter 27

Author's note: I think there are two more (long-ish) chapters to go. Just so people know there's a light at the end of the tunnel... ;)

xxx

Connor let the flame of the soldiering iron fizzle out, flipping up the visor that had all but become part of him over the past weeks. Before him sat a device that represented everything he'd worked towards, but instead of satisfaction, a niggle of doubt rested just below his ribcage.

_What if Abby's right?_ He asked himself gloomily. _How are we going to know if it actually works or not?_

Connor hesitated before flipping the small red switch to turn the detector on. He didn't want to let Abby down – she needed this more than anyone. She was wearing herself thin with her constant vigilance on the hills, and even when Connor persuaded her to rest while he took up the search, she still didn't sleep.

Standing up, he stretched his aching muscles. Around him, the barn was quiet except for the pitter-patter of rain on the roof.

The door behind him creaked open, and he turned to see Stephen making an entrance. His recovery over the past couple of weeks had been nothing short of miraculous. _But then,_ Connor reflected, _Stephen's been pushing himself as hard as Abby has. _

As if to prove his point, Stephen appeared to be wearing running gear.

"All right, mate?" Connor asked as Stephen approached, breathing heavily from his exertions and dripping rainwater into the dirt of the barn floor. "You look a bit damp."

Stephen nodded leaning down to rest his hands on his thighs as he caught his breath. "I hate being unfit," he muttered, between lessening gasps.

Connor turned to pour him a mug of steaming tea from the flask on his desk. "You seem to be making pretty good progress," he said, aiming to be encouraging. "I can't believe that you were in a wheelchair two and a bit weeks back."

Stephen took the proffered mug gratefully and sank onto the stool. "I just want to get out there, you know? I hate being stuck in the house."

"No point killing yourself, though," said Connor, also taking a seat. "When that thing opens, we're going to need you in one piece, not flat on your back in hospital again."

"Speaking of which…" Stephen nodded towards the assembled detector. "That looks pretty good. How's it going?"

"Ah ha! Well now, it just so happens that you've arrived at the right moment," said Connor, injecting more brightness into his voice than he felt. "What you see here is the all new _Mark 5_ Anomaly Detector, built with a _very_ special element."

Stephen raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really? And what would that be?"

"That would be, my friend, what I like to call 'The Connor Factor'. It's got that extra little bit of sparkle, that indefinable twinkle that's going to make this the perfect gadget."

"I see. It's got nothing to do with electronics, and scientific endeavour then?"

"Well, that too, obviously. Just not in such great quantities."

Stephen grinned. "Come on then. What's it telling you?"

"Nothing yet. I haven't turned it on. I was just about to when you came in."

Connor didn't miss the pensive look that passed through Stephen's eyes. It only lasted for a split second, and it was replaced by another grin almost immediately, but Connor had seen it. He looked away, tapping his fingers on the desk.

"Stephen, can I ask you something?"

"Sure. Go ahead."

Connor paused for a moment, grimacing at what he was about to say, before he asked, "How long do we wait?"

Stephen was quiet. Connor looked up and met his eye, seeing the sadness in the older man's gaze.

"I don't know," Stephen said, honesty sharpening the words. "I just don't know. Part of me – the rational part – says that they were dead the minute the anomaly closed. But the other part of me…" He shrugged, glancing down at the mug clutched in his hands before forcing a smile and reaching over to clap Connor on the shoulder. "I do know this though. If we don't turn this thing on, that's one less chance we've got of finding them. So let's get on with it, shall we?"

Connor took a deep breath, and nodded. "Right you are then," he said, reaching for the detector and putting his finger to the switch. "Here we go…"

He flipped the switch, and the small screen buzzed into life. The two men leaned forward, staring at it, but all it gave out was a faint green light.

Xxx

"How about up there?"

Nick looked up, following Jenny's pointed finger. She was indicating a huge tree with wide, low-slung branches. "A tree house?" he asked, with a smile.

She shrugged, smiling back. "Why not? We'll have about as much room as we had in the caves, and it'll give us a bit more protection than being at ground level."

Nick nodded. She was right. Looking down at his feet, he flexed his injured ankle. It still wasn't perfect, and climbing wouldn't be easy, but he'd manage. And they really did need to find somewhere permanent to sleep that was safer than their gully.

In fact, he was doubtful that their den even existed after the events of the previous evening. They'd been out during the day, searching for food, and had returned with a store of unrecognisable fruits and seeds that didn't seem to be bitter enough to be poison. Having shared the spoils, they'd sat side by side, talking quietly about this and that – their lives at home, their friends and family. Nick realised that he knew nothing about Jenny, but supposed that wasn't surprising. After all, after his run in with her fiancée that night, Nick had transformed any interest he had into an active effort to suppress everything between them that wasn't directly work related. It had worked, too – right up until that fateful day that her curiosity had got the better of her.

Here though, trapped alone with her in the past, he found he wanted to know everything about her life. Nick wasn't blind as to why – his growing sense of affection for and connection to this woman was too profound for even him to ignore. And though he'd tried to curb it, Nick knew it was hopeless – just as hopeless, in fact, as his previously dogged determination to separate Claudia and Jenny in his mind. They were different, yes, but Nick had gradually grown to realise, and then slowly to accept, that they were also one and the same. Beneath everything, Jenny was Claudia, and Nick suspected that had he had a chance to know Claudia better, he would have discovered a shade of her that was also Jenny.

Here, in a past where he could never do anything about it other than acknowledge to himself how irrevocably bound he was to this woman, Nick had discovered that he'd been given a second chance after all.

These things had occurred to him as they'd talked, and the shadows had grown longer outside their hiding place. He'd been explaining how he and Helen met when Jenny rested her head on his shoulder. He'd responded automatically, opening his arm for her to settle more closely against him, her head resting warmly on his chest. She'd started telling him about how she met Mark, but had fallen asleep before she finished.

Nick had sat, stroking her hair, silently cursing the cruel gods of fate and thinking about her innocent fiancé. What had Mark been told? They'd been gone almost three months now, and he knew what sort of torture it was when a loved one vanished. Did he think she was dead? Was he trying to move on? Was he doing what Nick had done – holding out hope for as long as possible?

Guilt and fear suffused Nick as he looked down at Jenny's sleeping form. Guilt because, in his heart of hearts, he was hoping that Mark had let her go, and he knew how painful that would be for the other man. Fear because Nick knew that in Mark's shoes, he would never have given up hope of Jenny's return. And if that was the case, and they walked through the anomaly to find Mark waiting for her…

Would she go back to him? Nick thought it likely. He had nothing to offer Jenny other than his heart, and that had been battered and broken so many times that it was a poor promise. And he hadn't even offered it, and there was no guarantee Jenny would want it even if he were fool enough to. The pressures of being alone in the world had forced them together, but there was no reason to think she'd be interested once returned to their own time. If they ever got back. Which Nick had to confess, if only to himself, he was beginning to doubt.

It was in the whirl of these troubled thoughts that Nick had finally drifted off to sleep…

…only to be woken by a cacophony of noise as they were attacked. Out of nowhere, the branches covering the gully were ripped away. Huge jaws lifted the wood, tossing it across the forest floor like tissue paper.

Nick threw Jenny as deep into the lip of the gully as he could, grabbing his fishing spear. It still had his bowie knife attached, and he lunged at the creature, trying to drive it back. It looked like a Pristerognathid, its huge canines dripping saliva as it tried to grab at him.

He succeeded in wounding it, stabbing at foot with a lucky strike that threw him off balance as it lurched away, roaring. He was about to move in again when Jenny grabbed his arm.

"Let's go," she shouted urgently, "while it's distracted. You'll never kill it!"

He hesitated for a split second, but realised Jenny was right. The creature was thrashing around, and they were momentarily forgotten, but it would soon come at its quarry once again. They ran, crashing through the undergrowth until they found another hiding place.

_And so, here we are,_ Nick though, gazing up at the tree that Jenny had found. _Househunting._

The thought made him laugh, and Jenny turned to him with a questioning smile.

"Nothing," he said. "Sorry. I think I'm losing my marbles. Come on, let's take a closer look."

Xxx

To be continued


	28. Chapter 28

Author's note: Okay, so it might actually be three chapters, not two!

xxx

In the event, it was Abby who heard the detector go off, not Connor. It was late at night – the boys had persuaded her to stop her trips over the ladder hills now that they had Connor's device, but her mind wouldn't let her sleep.

So instead she'd been downstairs in Corrinuch, drinking coffee and staring at the blank darkness outside, when she heard it. At first she'd thought it was something in the kitchen – an electronic timer left on, perhaps. But she'd wandered in to find everything silent. Frowning, Abby had left the kitchen again, listening more intently. She'd come to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, ears straining to pick up the sound.

_ping… ping… ping…_

The realisation of what it was came to her in a flash, and, shocked, Abby dropped the mug she was holding. It smashed on the wooden floor, splashing coffee across the planks as she started up the stairs, two at a time.

"Connor!" She shouted, "Connor!"

The hall light came on as she reached the top step, Stephen wielding the arm of a piece of his gym equipment, clearly expecting some sort of attack.

"Abby?" he hissed, "What on Earth's going on?"

"Listen!"

Stephen fell silent for a second, frozen stock still as he concentrated on the quiet around them. And there is was again, a faint peeping noise.

"It's the detector!" Abby said, "It's the anomaly detector!"

Understanding bloomed in Stephen's eyes and together they shouted as they ran to Connor's bedroom.

"Connor! Wake up! _Wake up_!"

They burst through the door to find him asleep, still fully clothed, slumped across the bed on top of a pile of Nick's books. Open in one hand was a book on the Triassic period, but the detector was nowhere to be seen.

Stephen reached the bed and shook Connor awake

"Wha- ?" Connor looked up, bleary eyed and still mostly asleep. "Wha's going on?"

"The detector," Abby said frantically, "Where is it? Can't you hear it?"

Suddenly wide awake, Connor sat up, scrabbling around on the cluttered bed. "It's here – it's right here… somewhere…"

He moved a book and Abby spied the gadget, screen blinking faintly. She snatched it up, holding it out for Stephen and Connor to see.

"It's back," she whispered, overwhelmed, "guys, it's _back_!"

xxx

They geared up as quickly as possible, having already established a plan for this eventuality. Loading the Range Rover, Stephen drove out of Corrinuch and along the rough road to Chapletown as quickly as he dared. The plan was to drive to Badenyon, from where they could get up to the anomaly site – assuming it had opened in the same place – as quickly as possible with their packs on their backs. It just wasn't practical to trek over the hills when they could drive, even if it would take longer to get there.

A pensive silence fell as the bumped along the track and out onto the relative comfort of the tarmac. This was what they had been waiting for, but now that it was here, Stephen was sure he wasn't the only one apprehensive about what they would find on the other side.

He wondered if they would be the only team heading for the open anomaly. Presumably Lester had been alerted back at the ARC, and would be scrambling personnel to get up here as quickly as possible. It was actually a comforting thought – Stephen was open to as much help as he could possibly get.

His thoughts strayed to Helen, and he wondered where she was. He'd half expected her to reappear at Corrinuch, but since their encounter he'd seen no more of her. Stephen felt slightly guilty for not telling Abby and Connor of her visit, but had decided that the less said about Helen, the better.

They pulled into Badenyon's wide gravel driveway, leaping out and immediately hauling on the packs that Stephen had loaded himself. Each had provisions for first aid, food and shelter – if the anomaly were to close again and this time strand the rest of them there, he wanted to have a decent chance of survival. _Although,_ he reflected, snapping his pack straps shut around his waist and chest, _it's been three months since the anomaly last opened, and what we can carry won't last that long… _

He straightened up as Abby came around the corner of the car, holding one of their powerful flashlights.

"Are you sure you're up to this?" She asked.

"No," Stephen said, bluntly. "But if you think I'm letting you two go alone, you've got another thing coming."

Abby nodded, and Stephen thought she might have offered a grin had she not been so tense. "All right then," she said, taking a breath. "Let's go."

They bypassed the farmhouse and struck out onto the hills, flashlights bobbing in the night light giant fireflies.

xxx

Helen saw them coming a mile off, the yellow light of their torches easy beacons to pick out in the gloom. She was ahead of them, and moved more quickly, unhampered by a large pack. She was glad to see that Stephen was with them – not that Helen could see his face, but she assumed the number of lights meant that they were all present – as it meant he must have recovered swiftly. Despite her posturing, she was more fond of her former lover than she'd ever reveal to him.

She turned back towards the anomaly, still a little way ahead, and wondered what she would find on the other side. If Nick and Jenny had survived and set up home near the anomaly site, she'd have to do something to prevent the two groups meeting each other – that is, if she wanted to have a hope of keeping them in the Triassic.

_Then again,_ Helen thought, glancing back over her shoulder briefly, _maybe this is the break I've been waiting for. Another three humans thrown into the mix would surely tip the balance in favour_ _of humanity?_

She stopped in front of the anomaly, staring up at the fragmented diamonds of light, glittering sickly in the night.

…_decisions, decisions…_

With a small shrug, Helen squared her shoulders and stepped nonchalantly into the past.

Xxx

To be continued…


	29. Chapter 29

UFB 29

Author's note: Gah. Let's forget I told you a number of chapters, cos I don't seem to be able to stick to my estimate. But this _will_ be finished by the weekend!

xxx

The anomaly lit up the dark hillside like a firework in the night, casting flickering shadows on the grasses and shuddering against the rain clouds. Stephen, Connor and Abby came to a stop a few feet in front of it, contemplating for the first time what they were about to do. Who knew what would be on the other side?

Abby was shaken by a sudden and instinctive fear. It pounded at her heart as she looked at the slowly spinning light, and she saw herself, prone on the ground as the Ornithosuchus towered over her. The memory of Jenny, clamped in its jaws, was one that had permeated her dreams ever since, and the cold slick of terror that now wound itself around Abby's heart told her that all of that could happen again, to any of them, right here, right now…

She took a deep breath, shifting the heavy pack slung across her shoulders, and looked at Stephen. He was staring at the anomaly with concentration, as if trying to see through it and directly into the past.

"Come on, then," she said quietly. "Let's go, if we're going. We don't know how long we've got."

"It seems pretty strong at the moment," Connor piped up, waving the detector. "No variation in the magnetic field so far."

"Good," said Stephen. "Let's hope it stays that way. I'll take point. Ready?"

At their nods, Stephen turned away and, with one last deliberate breath, stepped into oblivion.

Abby felt Connor's eyes on her, and she glanced at him with a weak smile. "I'm fine, Connor. Stop worrying."

"Who's worrying?"

"You are. I can tell."

"Yeah, well, I think a little apprehension is understandable at this point," he said, moving closer to her, "for you, especially, like."

Abby hunched her shoulders as the rain began to fall again. "Connor," she said, before stepping through, "you could talk the jaw off a Gorgonopsid."

The change was as she'd remembered it – from wet and cold to humid and warm. Here, though, it was light – or at least, lighter, long shadows reaching along the tree trunks. Stephen was bent over a track on the ground, but straightened as they approached.

"Found something?" Abby asked.

Stephen's eyes were troubled. "Maybe. Not sure yet."

Abby looked at the ground where he had been standing, and her heart turned over. "A footprint!" She exclaimed.

"But… there's only one…" said Connor, looking askance at Stephen. "Aren't there any more?"

Stephen shook his head, "Not that I've seen yet."

Abby stared down at the imprint. It looked rather small to her, but had clearly been made by a walking boot. "Can you tell who it is?" she asked.

"I-" Stephen began, and then stopped, apparently distracted. He turned his head, listening.

"Stephen?" Abby asked, "What is it?"

The held up his hand, signalling for silence. Then, after a moment, he turned, with a finger to his lips, and indicated that they should stay put. A second later, he was gone, unslinging the rifle from his back and pushing through the thick undergrowth until he was no longer in sight.

Abby felt Connor's hand on her arm, and looked up at his anxious face. She shrugged, both of them strangely compelled to stay silent. Around them the dense forest was oddly quiet, and Abby felt a sense of foreboding as she looked down at the footprint again. It was obvious that the Professor and Jenny weren't within striking distance of the anomaly, or they would have likely seen it open, and if not then their voices would have been clear in the quiet. So where were they, and why was there only one footprint?

A sudden commotion of voices echoed a few meters away – a shout from Stephen, and a muttered, angry curse from someone else – and Stephen reappeared in the small clearing. He was herding a very human figure towards them.

"Helen!" Abby exclaimed, "I should have known!"

Helen looked over her shoulder at Stephen in irritation. He had the rifle trained on her back, and nudged her with it as she tried to come to a stand still.

"For god's sake, Stephen," she snapped, stumbling over the rough ground, "give it a break."

"What are you doing here, Helen?" Stephen asked, "How did you get here so fast?"

"How do you know I wasn't waiting up on the hills for it to open?"

"I would have seen you," Abby jumped in. "I was up there every day until a couple of days ago."

"Oh yes," Helen said dryly, "the same way you saw me ahead of you half an hour ago?"

Stephen nudged her in the back again, "Where have you been?" He asked, "To get back up here before us, you were either staying close, or you knew it was going to open. Which is it?"

"Does it really matter? Look around – what do you see? No sign of Nick or the girl, that's for sure. I told you, Stephen. You're wasting your time."

Abby looked at Helen suspiciously. "What do you mean, you told him?" Glancing at Stephen, she saw his face tense angrily.

Helen's eyes glittered maliciously as she smiled at Stephen. "Oh dear. Have you been keeping secrets from your little friends again?"

"Helen, I'm warning you. Shut up."

She laughed. "Or what? You'll shoot me? Come on, Stephen, you're no more a killer than Nick's superman." She looked back at Abby. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I paid Stephen a little visit at Corrinuch. I'm surprised he didn't tell you – really, I thought you were all so _close_."

Stephen looked between Abby and Connor, something of a pleading expression on his face. "I didn't tell you because there was nothing to say. She turned up to warn me off waiting for the anomaly to reopen. Which was clearly as much a lie as everything else she says."

Helen shrugged with an exaggerated sigh. "Well, bravo, Stephen, you proved me wrong. For all the good it's done you. Look around. They're not here."

"So where are they, Helen?"

"How the hell would I know?"

Stephen moved to confront her, narrowing his eyes as he concentrated on her face. "Because you've been here before."

"So what? So have they," she cocked her chin at Abby and Connor, "and they didn't find anything then, either."

Abby gave an incredulous laugh, "Have you been watching us the whole time?"

Stephen cut off any reply she may have made with a question of his own. "When was the last time you were here?"

Helen shrugged, avoiding his scrutiny.

"Helen, you will tell me what you know or so help me _god_, I will truss you up for Lester to find when he turns up on that hillside. Understand?" Stephen's voice was low and dangerous. He turned to Connor. "Get out the rope I packed for you."

Connor nodded and slipped off his rucksack, rifling through it before pulling out the slim, coiled rope.

"Last chance, Helen," Stephen warned. "Tell me, or rot in a cell for the rest of your life. Because, let's face it, to the government you're already dead. So Lester can do what he likes with you – and as far as I'm concerned, he's welcome."

Helen glared at Stephen, obviously assessing the truth of his words. After a moment she sighed and, shrugging her shoulders, smiled brightly.

"Oh well," she said, "It was fun while it lasted. The anomaly reopened twice after they were stranded here, before the ARC stationed their little minions here. I came through to see how they were doing."

Abby made a noise of disgust in her throat, "You didn't help them?"

Helen turned to her. "Of course I did. Without me, Jenny would be dead. Actually," she murmured, looking up at Stephen, "so would you be. It was only because the penicillin treated the infection from her bite that I knew that wasn't what was wrong with you."

"Why the hell didn't you bring them back?"

Helen laughed. "What makes you think Nick wanted to come back? Last time I saw him, he was having a fine time saving the damsel in distress."

Stephen gritted his teeth. "You're insane."

She sighed. "Oh really, Stephen. Like I haven't heard that one before."

"Where are they, Helen?"

"What, and ruin your chance to play boyscout to find their trail?"

Abby watched as Stephen lost the last of his patience. "Fine. Connor – Abby – tie her up. Right now – arms and legs. We'll push her back through the anomaly and leave her for the ARC teams to find."

It was all Abby needed to hear. She moved in, ready to do as Stephen had ordered.

"Oh, all right, all right," said Helen huffily. "For goodness' sake, Stephen, where's your sense of humour? Come on. I'll show you where they're playing house. It's not far, you know. You would have found them in no time."

She turned to head off into the forest, and Stephen nodded to Abby and Connor. "Okay, let's follow her. But the second she tries to break for it, be ready."

Helen kept trying to make bizarre conversation as they walked, Stephen with his eye on her back and Abby and Connor watching the forest around them. Abby assumed the woman was looking for a way to distract them – all it would take was a moment and she'd be off, and even Stephen would have trouble finding her in this jungle.

"Where are you taking us?" Abby asked, just so Helen's voice wasn't the only one she could hear.

"It's not far. Nick rather surprised me, actually. He was smart enough to find some good shelter – caves above a fresh water source." She laughed, "He really should have come travelling with me. I think he would have managed just fine."

Abruptly, the earth beneath their feet became boggy – Abby found her bots being sucked down into the dark, sticky mud.

"Whoa," she heard Connor say, "This is gross."

Helen suddenly fell silent, frowning at the ground.

"What is it?" Abby asked her. Helen looked up, a serious look on her face. For some reason that chilled Abby more than her previous fake joviality.

"This was bone dry last time I was here," said Helen. "The lake is still a good way away."

They trudged on, labouring over the difficult terrain. Eventually, ahead of them the trees began to thin.

"It's not far now," Helen told them, as they walked up a short ridge towards the edge of the tree line. "There's a plain that runs to a sort of sand bank, and then-"

She stopped dead, the others coming to a standstill at the edge of the forest. In front of them, from their toes into the horizon, stretched a vast body of water.

"I thought you said there was a plain," said Connor.

Helen stared at the water, apparently slightly shocked. "There was." Looking to her right, she shielded her eyes. Abby followed her gaze, and saw a rock formation standing in the midst of the lake, a beautiful waterfall cascading from a crevice at it's height.

"Helen?" she asked. "Come on, where to now? Where are these caves you were talking about?"

Helen ignored her, looking directly at Stephen. "There must have been a flood," she said quietly. "This lake was a fraction of this size when I was last here, and-" she pointed to the waterfall. "That's where they were. I'm sorry, Stephen. They must have been swept away."

Xxx

To be continued


	30. Chapter 30

Author's note: For those peeps asking for more Nick/Jenny… all I can say is, good things come to those who… wait ;)

Xxx

Stephen stared at Helen.

"I don't believe you," he said, quietly. "Tell me where they really are."

Helen gazed out of the water, for once no sign of subterfuge on her face. She turned to look up at Stephen, and shook her head. "I'm telling you the truth. I'm sorry. The last time I saw them, they were up on that rock formation. No sign of a waterfall, and a good distance from the lake. It would have taken a cataclysmic downfall to change the landscape like this. It most likely came out of nowhere, and gave them no time to escape."

"This is your fault," hissed Abby, "if you'd helped them – if you'd taken them back to the anomaly – or if you'd _told_ us, then-"

"Then what?" Helen asked, contemptuously. "If Nick had really wanted to go home, he would have stayed near the anomaly site. He has only himself to blame."

Abby, face a picture of rage, lunged at Helen, but Connor held her back, wrapping his arms around her. "We have to keep looking," he told Stephen, "there's still a chance – she could still be lying."

Stephen hadn't taken his eyes off Helen, who stared back at him with equal intensity.

"He knows I'm not," she murmured. "Not this time." Abruptly, she turned, staring out at the water. "And now you need to make up your minds. If you're going to turn me over to the men in black, you'd better tie me up now. Because if you don't, in five seconds I'm walking out of here. And then you really _will _have to shoot me to stop me."

Silence reigned. "Right then," she said. "I'm sure I'll see you all again sometime."

Helen made to move off, but Connor and Abby both cried out. "Stephen," Abby said, horrified, "You can't let her go!"

He looked at the younger woman, seeing the shadow of grief settling beneath her eyes, before glancing at Helen. "Get out of here," he said, roughly."I don't ever want to see you again, Helen, do you understand me?"

She smiled at him, a flash of fire in her eyes – and a second later she'd disappeared from view.

"What did you do that for?" Connor asked, shocked, "I can't believe you let her go!"

Stephen, suddenly exhausted beyond measure, shook his head. "Handing Helen over wouldn't have done us any good, Connor."

"It might not have done you any good, mate, but I reckon I would have got some satisfaction out of it! That woman, she's –_ arrgh! _I just don't understand you!"

Stephen looked them both over before shouldering his weapon again and setting off back down the faint trail to the anomaly. "Come on," he said, too tired to argue. "We have to go."

They followed after him eventually, as he had known they would. He could understand their anger, and even understood why it was directed at him. And in truth, maybe he shouldn't have let Helen go. But he'd looked at her and known instinctively that this time, she'd been telling the truth. For the first time, possibly since he'd known her, Helen Cutter had been as wrong-footed as the rest of them, and she hadn't been able to hide it.

They returned to the anomaly site in silence. Stephen's mind was elsewhere, emotions in too much turmoil to focus really focus on his surroundings. _What to do now?_ He asked himself. For the first time, he actually had to consider the fact that Nick was gone. It left an unexpected void in his heart that he knew would be difficult to fill.

The anomaly was as potent as when they'd first arrived, spinning slowly in mid-air as Stephen slowed to a stop before it. He paused before stepping through, knowing that he should say something to Abby and Connor, who had been so steadfast in their refusal to accept the inevitable. Now they had no choice, and he had to be the one that forced them to acknowledge it, however painful it was for them all. He turned, an tried to think of something to say.

"Look, Abby, Connor. I know – believe me, I really do know – what you're feeling right now. Nick was my friend. I loved him like a brother, whatever had happened between us recently, and now… I can't believe he's really gone." Stephen stopped as tears threatened to choke his voice. "But he has," he continued hoarsely, "and all we can do is remember him - and Jenny, too – as two of the most amazing people we ever knew."

Abby stared at her feet, refusing to look at him. Her jaw was set and angry, and Stephen realised with resignation that she was unlikely to forgive him. Connor was staring off into space, apparently fascinated by the trunk of a nearby tree. Accepting defeat, Stephen sighed, glancing around the clearing one last time.

"Okay," he said heavily. "Come on then. Let's-"

"What's that?" Connor asked.

"What's what?"

Connor nodded towards the tree. "There. I thought it was a bug or something, but there weren't – aren't - any bugs in the Triassic."

"Where?" Abby asked, finally looking up.

The young man pointed as he moved closer to the object. Stephen and Abby crowded around.

"It's a leaf," he said, puzzled.

"Yeah," said Abby, equally perplexed. "But it looks like it's been pinned to the trunk."

"Weird," said Connor. "What would do that?"

Stephen stared at the leaf. It was fresh – it hadn't yet wilted in the hot prehistoric air, which meant it could only have been there for a day at the most. And a light went off in his head.

"Something with opposable thumbs," he said, excitement fluttering in his heart as he reached out and removed the large splinter very deliberately holding the leaf in place. Under the leaf was a mark that could only have been made by a knife. It was cut in the shape of an N.

"Eh?"

Stephen let the grin that had been growing in him loose on his face as he clapped Connor on the shoulder. "It's a sign, Connor. Actually, it's more than a sign. It's a bloody _flare_!"

Xxx

To be continued


	31. Chapter 31

Author's note: Should have done some gun research – sorry.

Xxx

Nick checked the edge of his blade. It was strong, but he didn't want to take unnecessary chances – if it snapped, it would mean doing without, and he'd discovered just how invaluable a good blade was. It seemed fine for now, though, and so he went back to his task –– cutting 'steps' into the trunk of 'their' tree. He'd noticed Jenny slip once or twice on her way up and down, and had decided a bit of hard work would be better than either of them breaking a leg.

"Nick?"

Jenny appeared above him, slithering down to stand on the wide branch just a couple of feet above his head. Sunshine glinted in her hair, which she'd tied back in a rough knot. Nick paused, admiring the view, and saw her blush at his frank appraisal. Since she'd saved him from the lake, they had grown inexorably closer. Without discussion, they had each drawn an invisible line over which neither would step, but Nick found it impossible to hide how he felt, either from himself, or from her. He loved her, plain and simple, and though it could not be stated or returned, they'd found some form of mutual comfort in a gentle flirtation that seemed to lessen the emptiness of the planet.

"What?" She asked, raising an eyebrow defiantly.

"Nothing," he said with a grin. "What can I do for you, Jennifer Lewis?"

She dropped her legs down over the branch and sat, holding something out to him.

"A seed?" he asked, and she nodded.

"It's from some of the fruit we had last night," she explained. "What would you think about me planting a garden?" Jenny pointed to a small patch of grass a few feet away from the shade of the tree. "If we grew our own food plants, we could cut down on the time we spend collecting windfalls."

Nick nodded, thoughtfully, though uncertainty must have surfaced in his expression, because Jenny's face fell.

"You don't think it's a good idea?"

He slipped the bowie into the waistband of his jeans and climbed the trunk to sit beside her. "It's not that I don't think it's a good idea. It'd be great to have a ready food source. We've just got to be careful. We can't leave signs of civilisation or we're going to cause real problems."

She nodded, looking down at her hands, folded in her lap. "Do you really think us being here makes that much of a difference?" She asked.

Nick shrugged, reaching out to push a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "I don't know," he told her. "But we can't take the risk. Though, for what it's worth-"

BAMM!

The sound cracked the prehistoric air and froze them both to the spot. For a second Nick wondered if he'd imagined it, but Jenny's wide eyes told him she'd heard it to.

"What the-?"

The anachronistic sound still rattled through the forest, drowned out only by the rush or adrenaline in Nick's ears.

"Rifle," he said, stunned, "My god, that was a rifle blast."

Jenny's mouth dropped open. "Do you think…."

He gave a quick nod, scrambling down the tree, "The anomaly! It must have reopened – they fired that shot as a flare!"

Reaching the ground, he held out his arms to help Jenny safely to the floor. He was shaking with shock and excitement, and as her feet touched earth and she turned to face him, he saw the same emotions echoed in her eyes.

"We're going home," she whispered, "Oh my god, Nick – we're going home."

He nodded, grinning and, caught up in the moment, he picked her up, holding her tight against him as he spun her around. She laughed, a light, joyful sound, and she was still laughing as he put her down.

Arms still around her, another thought occurred to him. It blew in on the wind, chilling his heart. She watched the smile fade from his face, and frowned.

"Nick? What's the matter?"

He shook his head. What could he answer? There was nothing he could say. How could he explain that despite the countless moments of pain and terror they had endured, the months he'd spent here with her would be some of the most wonderful of his life. And now, now that they were going back…

Her eyes were wide, her face was pale and she was quite the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in his life.

"Jenny…" he said, before impulse took over. Nick pulled her towards him, lips closing on hers in a desperate, hungry kiss. His conscious mind told him that they should be running, running like hell towards the source of that gunshot, but he had to take this moment, just this one, single moment….

He felt Jenny flex against him, her fingers running across his back and under his shirt as she parted her lips under his. He felt a shockwave building in the pit of his stomach, palpable electricity arcing through his body as he held on to her, crushing her closer.

Bamm….bamm…. bamm, bamm, bamm…

Shock forced Nick the break the kiss, breathing hard.

"That doesn't sound like they're sending a flare," gasped Jenny.

"No, it really doesn't." He grabbed her hand, the passion of a moment earlier suddenly quenched by cold, hard fear.

The rifle blasts continued, joined by smaller weapons fire as they ran towards the fray. They crashed through the forest, hearing shouts up ahead as the furore continued. Now, though, it was joined by something else – the deep, guttural sounds of something that definitely wasn't human. Reaching a tree line, they crouched and looked down the slight slope before them.

"Oh my god." Jenny stared, horrified, as the melee came into view.

"Ornithosuchus," Nick breathed. "Two of them – it must be a hunting pair…"

The two creatures looked as if they'd crawled straight out of hell. They'd cornered their prey in a patch of clear but uneven ground. Nick looked down to see Stephen, Abby and Connor firing desperately up at their attackers. They'd been lured into a slight depression in the ground, and Nick could see that the battle was very definitely going to the strong, not the armed. Connor and Abby had handguns, but the bullets were nowhere near powerful enough penetrate the creatures' hides. The rifle was having more effect – both of the dinosaurs showed sign of injury – but Stephen had to reload after every shot.

Nick looked around frantically, desperate for a way to help. He had his own handgun, but that was just as useless, and besides he only had two bullets left.

"Jenny, stay out of sight," he ordered, pointing her toward the undergrowth.

"What about you?"

"I've got to do something… Go!" He gave her a gentle push before turning back to the battle going on before him. Moving closer, he stood up, and began waving his arms. "Stephen! Abby, Connor! Over here!"

Stephen heard him first, turning toward him with an expression that ranged from shock to joy in five seconds flat. "Nick!"

"Throw me your gun," Nick shouted, "If I shoot one of them from here it'll create a diversion – give you a chance to break for the trees."

His instructions were interrupted by another roar from one of the creatures, which took Stephen's momentary distraction as a chance to snap downwards. Stephen dropped to his knees and fired , knocking a chunk out of the Ornithosuchus's face, before turning in one fluid, graceful movement and lobbing the rifle in an arc towards Nick. Nick caught it and pumped the action. All he had was one shot, and he had to make it count.

"All right," he shouted. "Get ready to run like hell!"

He saw Stephen nod his head briefly, crouching closer to Abby for cover. Targetting the Ornithosuchus closest to him, Nick aimed at the creature's foot, remembering his last encounter with a prehistoric beast. This one was moving just as erratically, and he prayed that he could get his eye in...

"I'm gonna count to three," he shouted, over the noise of the creatures' thundering feet and constant roars. "Okay - one... two... THREE!"

He fired, the force of the rifle slamming against his shoulder as it discharged and threatening to send the slug off course. The second before impact seemed to stretch into infinity as the scene before him froze into a violet tableau...

And then the bullet hit, blasting into the Ornithosuchus' foot, sending a blood splatter into the air. The creature roared and, as if in slow motion, crashed to the ground.

"Go!" Nick yelled over the creature's screams, "Go, go, go, GO!"

He looked long enough to see the three of them begin to run, and then turned, shouting for Jenny. She'd obviously been watching, as she sprang out of undergrowth immediately, just in front of him. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Abby and Connor following, with Stephen making up the rear. The injured Ornithosuchus was still nursing its wound, but its mate was not so hampered. It lunged for them almost immediately, and Nick heard Abby scream as the snapping jaws passed by, far too close for comfort.

Nick caught up with Jenny, grabbing her hand and pulling her deeper into the forest, hoping to slow the creature's progress. Around them, the foliage passed in a blur as they ran, leaping over hidden logs and scrambling through dense undergrowth. Once, Nick had to go back and drag Abby up as her foot sank into mulch.

Still the dinosaur followed them, crashing into trees and splintering the wood with its massive bulk. Nick turned again to see Stephen losing ground, becoming tangled in the creepers hanging from branches along their path. He slowed again, urging Abby and Connor on as they passed him.

"Come on, Stephen," he shouted, "You can make it!"

Stephen made no indication that he'd heard Nick's words, concentrating all his energy on staying upright on the treacherous ground. The Ornithosuchus was almost upon him, roaring as it plunged its head towards the running human.

"Shit, shit, shit..." Nick looked down at the rifle in his hands - useless without another cartridge. He shouted again. "Stephen - ammo - I need your ammo!"

He saw Stephen shake his head briefly, too out of breath to answer. Nick began to run again as the chase grew almost level with where he stood. He could tell that Stephen was tiring - he was used to the younger man outstripping him in the stamina stakes, but right now he looked as if he was about to collapse.

"Don't wait for me," Stephen panted, "Get out of here!"

"Keep going," Nick shouted at him, "It can't be that far to the anomaly site - keep going."

"I can't-" Stephen's words were cut short as the Ornithosuchus got close enough to bat him, smashing its head into his shoulder and knocking him into a tree.

Nick stopped and span, throwing the useless rifle at the creature in a vain attempt to slow it down. He grabbed Stephen's arm and hauled him upright. "I'm not leaving you here, so let's go."

The ran forward again, stumbling in clumsy zig-zags to avoid the dinosaur's continued attack.

"We're never going to make it," Stephen rasped, "The anomaly's still too far."

"What sort of talk is that? Come on, Stephen, put some backbone into it!"

He got no answer, Stephen obviously too exhausted to reply. They forged on, and Nick was relieved to see no sign of Jenny, Abby or Connor. If they were far enough ahead to be safe, that would be something, at least.

Nick felt his knees buckle and he swore. _This is it, _he thought, as he fell, _No way out now – it's too close..._

The Ornithosuchus was so near he could smell its foul breath as he and Stephen crashed to the ground. Nick pushed Stephen into a roll and forced himself the other way, shutting his eyes as those vicious jaws snapped against his face.

There was an echoing sound, an odd thudding above him, and something like warm rain spattered across the front of his tattered shirt. Confusion reigned for a second - Nick thought it was the dinosaur's saliva, but then a new, more brutal sound took over. He opened his eyes and looked down at himself to see thick globules of blood. Panicked, he looked over at Stephen, but the younger man was turned away from him, curled in a foetal position.

The creature, still poised above him, reared it's head and roared as the sound came again, and Nick saw it's chest ripped open by multiple impacts that crashed into it from above his head. It topped backwards, staggering against a tree, its weight crushing the wood like paper. Eventually the Ornithosuchus collapsed completely, slumping to the ground and letting out one last moan before shutting its eyes for good.

Head ringing, almost deaf, Nick flipped over onto his stomach. Several feet away, crouched in an attack position, was a team of men kitted out in black combat gear. Each was armed with a sub-machine gun, all still trained on the fallen corpse of the Ornithosuchus.

Still winded, Nick dragged himself up as the soldiers began to move and Jenny, Connor and Abby ran towards him. Crawling to Stephen, Nick turned his friend over, relieved to find him conscious and unhurt.

"ARC," he managed, by way of explanation.

Stephen nodded, utterly drained. "Cool."

"You okay?"

"Think so. You?"

"Well... I've been better."

Suddenly Stephen grinned, and dug something out of his trouser pocket. It was the leaf Nick had pinned to the tree. "Got your note," he said.

xxx

To be continued...


	32. Chapter 32

Author's note: I know this was supposed to be finished over the weekend. Sigh. I ended up moving house instead! So nearly there now though… I hope people still like it.

xxx

Things happened very quickly after that. The ARC team began to shepherd them towards the anomaly, eager to get back to their own time and complete their mission. Cutter was concerned about the state of the Ornithosuchus corpse, arguing that they couldn't leave it as it was, riddled with bullets. But as the stench of the beast's blood began to fill the air, the risk of attacks from other predators increased. Cutter had to admit defeat or lay the deaths of many others on his conscience.

Jenny, still rather dazed by the swift turn of events, listened quietly to Abby and Connor's excited chatter as they walked, but found herself unable to return it. It was shock, she supposed. She kept glancing at Nick, but his attention was elsewhere, explaining what had happened to Stephen.

Just as suddenly, they were back in their own time, on the rain-soaked and wind-swept Scottish hillside that had all but disappeared from her memory over the past three months. Stepping through the anomaly, Jenny found herself blinded by the powerful lights that the present-side ARC team had established to combat the night. There were tents and vehicles set up in a semi-circle, and through the glare of the lamps she heard running feet and shouts.

"Ms Lewis, Mr Cutter, this way, if you please…"

Jenny felt inexplicably nervous. This was home, this was where she belonged, but everything suddenly felt up-ended and wrong. For a start, she was dressed in the remains of clothes that barely covered her torso. As if reading her mind, a soldier ran up and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. She pulled it closer to her body, but still felt exposed.

Nick appeared at her side and she looked up at him, trying to convey her anxiety in a look. He smiled warmly, slipping an arm around her waist. "It's okay," he reassured her. "They're just going to check us out and then we can head back to Corrunich."

"Great," she murmured. "Let's get it over with."

They were ushered into a medical tent, and were being busily examined as the tent flap opened. Lester strode in. Jenny was disconcerted to see that he was wearing a mask that covered his nose and mouth.

"Jenny, Cutter" he said, the ghost of a smile in his voice. "It's good to have you both back."

"We're happy to be here," Nick told him. "Thanks for sending the backup."

"All part of the service," Lester said, brusquely, "although my captain tells me he could have done without the amateurs stepping in. If Stephen, Abby and Connor hadn't been there, the extraction would have been far easier, apparently."

"I doubt you would have found us so quickly without them," Jenny said, mildly. She was in no mood to argue.

Lester nodded, his mind already elsewhere. "Well, I have something to tell you that I know neither of you are going to like, but it's out of my hands, I'm afraid."

"What is it?" Nick asked, eyes narrowing.

Lester waved a hand at his mask. "We're going to have to quarantine you. We've got a unit set up and read at the ARC."

"What?" Jenny exclaimed, "Why? Neither of us have shown any signs of transmittable illness. And if you were worried, why weren't your team in breathing gear?"

"They're being checked out now. Their exposure has been minimal." Lester looked at Cutter. "Stephen filled you in about his spell at death's door, I take it?"

Nick nodded. "He did. I can see why you wouldn't want any of the fungus taking hold here, but really – the chances that we're carriers without being infected ourselves is miniscule."

"That's as may be, Cuter, but no one's taking any chances. The only way I could authorise the extraction budget was by convincing my superiors that precautions could be taken if we found you. So, from here you'll be transported to the ARC and placed in confinement for three weeks. If we can clear you before then, we'll let you out, obviously."

Jenny was no more pleased than Nick about this latest turn of events, and opened her mouth to protest. Lester cut her off.

"By the way, Ms Lewis, you couldn't have returned at a better time. I've had Mark breathing down my neck since the minute you disappeared. The cover story is that you've been kidnapped by extremists, but I don't think he ever believed it. And being a journalist – and a bloody good one, at that - he knows how to ferret these things out. I was beginning to wonder what was going to end up on the front page. I'll say one thing for him though – he wasn't about to give up. He's been on the bloody blower twice a day, every day, since you vanished."

The mention of Mark's name made both Jenny and Nick jump, eyes flying towards each other. Jenny looked away again almost immediately, but not before she saw Nick's expression close down. Her heart sank. How could she have forgotten what waited for her back here? And what was she going to do about it? The knowledge of Mark's determination to find her coiled around her heart like a chain.

"When can I speak to him?" she asked, deliberately not looking at Nick as she spoke.

"Let's get you into quarantine first. I can understand you want to see him as soon as possible, but we're going to have to make sure we've got our stories straight first, and you need some time to get cleaned up and settled before we'll go over that. Okay?"

She nodded, dumbly, suddenly very tired.

Xxx

Nick absently tapped on the glass of their quarantine unit. He felt as if he were in a goldfish bowl. In fact, to all intents and purposes, they _were_ in a goldfish bowl. All that was missing was the water. The hermetically sealed enclosure had been built in a half-moon shape, curved glass making up the front of the unit. It ran floor to ceiling, so that everyone outside could see in. The rest of the area was a 'living space', with sofas, a large plasma TV, two desks with laptop computers, and a dining table. The back wall was cold grey steel, and small opaque cubicles with a bed, a table and a shower in each had been built at either end.

The cubicles represented the only privacy that Nick and Jenny had had from the ARC staff for the past seven days.

He glanced at the clock on the wall, which read 6.30am. Jenny was still asleep in her 'bedroom'. Nick wondered if she was frowning in her sleep. He'd often woken up beside her over the past three months and found her forehead creased with anxiety. He'd always wanted to smooth his thumb over the lines, to wipe them away as she woke.

Nick shook himself, and began to pace the length of the glass. Since they'd been rescued, any hint of intimacy between them had vanished as surely as it had never been. Nick wasn't sure whether it was a symptom of them returning to their natural state and time, or if it had been enforced by their current state of quarantine. Here, stared at by all and sundry, they couldn't even talk. Neither of them had tried, all too aware of the microphones overhead and the many pairs of eyes outside.

Jenny also seemed to be actively putting as much space between them as possible. She didn't sit beside him as they watched film after film for want of something better to do. When the ARC staff delivered food, her mealtime conversation was polite but distant, and never prolonged. Every now and then she'd slip, and they'd edge closer to the personal, before Jenny seemed to realise what was happening and snapped back into cool detachment. She spent most of her time at the computer, writing or reviewing reports. Nick wondered if she had been emailing Mark, or whether that was forbidden for now. He knew her fiancé had been told that Jenny had now been 'recovered' but was undergoing psychological assessments and debriefing in a 'secure location'.

He tried not to think about Mark too much. Jenny's response when Lester had conveyed his anxiety – her eagerness to see her partner as soon as possible – seemed to bear out his deepest fear. Nick was out and Mark was back in, simple as that. _That's no surprise_, he told himself, _you expected it._

His heart ached, and the thought drew out of him an involuntary sigh.

"Penny for them?" said a voice over the microphone. Nick looked up to see Stephen standing on the other side of the glass.

"Nothing worth talking about," Nick assured him. "What are you doing here so early?"

Stephen held up a box of Krispy Kreme donuts. "Thought you might like a treat for breakfast. I'll ask the ARC people to bring them in."

Nick smiled. "Thanks. Jenny will love that. They've been telling her she needs to get her weight back up. She's bored to death of the steak and Guinness pudding they keep giving her."

Stephen returned Nick's laughter. "I think you'll be out of here soon," said the younger man. "From what they're saying there's no sign you're carriers."

Nick nodded, looking down at his feet. "Great. Can't wait to get home."

Home. It seemed like an alien concept. He wondered if anyone had watered his plants. It seemed unlikely.

He was suddenly assaulted by a memory of Jenny, leaning against his hallway wall, eyes closed…

Nick blinked, looking back up at Stephen. "Much anomaly activity to report?"

"There have been a couple of incursions, yeah…"

Nick dropped down onto the sofa and listened as Stephen filled him in.

Xxx

Jenny shut her eyes and bit into a glazed chocolate cake donut – her favourite – with an almost happy sigh. She heard a chuckle, and opened her eyes to see Nick watching her, amused.

"Good?" he asked.

"Perfect," Jenny said, with her mouth full. "Stephen's a saint. Krispy Kremes are, after all, the food of the gods."

Nick reached out and took one. "I never had you pegged for a sugar fiend."

"Well, a girl has to keep some secrets."

He grinned at her, and she felt her heart stutter. To steady herself, she took another bite of her breakfast and looked away. _This is so hard, _she thought, as the donut stuck in her throat. _Doing the right thing shouldn't be this hard._

Jenny had done everything she could to get herself back on an even keel where Nick was concerned, and to his credit he hadn't even tried to force the issue. Like now, for instance, she could feel him retreating from their exchange, as if aware she thought it was too close to the mark. What must he think of her? She'd responded to that last kiss readily enough.

She didn't want to cut him off completely, but Mark was whom she'd promised herself to – and Mark was _there_, just waiting for her to get out of confinement. All the time she'd been away, he'd been searching for her. How could she walk away from him now that she was so miraculously back?

"So," she said, with false jollity, desperate to engage Nick somehow. "What's the first thing you're going to do when they let us out of here?"

"Well, Stephen says there's an anomaly to the Permian era open at the moment," Nick said, picking up another donut. "Thought I might take a look…"

"What?!" Jenny said, aghast. "You can't be serious! Surely you're not going straight back out there-"

He looked up at her with a glint in his eye, and she realised he was teasing her. Outraged, Jenny thumped him.

"Ow!"

"You deserve it," she said, laughing. "Don't you ever-"

"Jenny?"

The voice came over the external microphone. Jenny dropped her donut, spinning around in her chair to see the figure standing on the other side of the glass wall. "Mark!"

She ran to the glass. Mark was looking, perplexed, at the table where Nick still sat, surrounded by the remains of their breakfast.

"What are you doing here?" Jenny asked, acutely aware as soon as she'd said it that her first words should have been something else. Behind him stood two armed guards.

Mark looked at her, placing his hands flat against the glass. She mirrored his action, matching her palms to his. Behind her, she heard the scrape of Nick's chair as he stood up, and his footsteps as he walked away.

Mark glanced over her shoulder again, another puzzled look on his face. "Wasn't that… Wasn't that the guy who showed up at our door a few months back? Who is he? Why is he in there with you?"

Jenny looked back over her shoulder to see Nick retreating behind his cubicle wall. She pushed away the tremor she felt. _This is the right thing_, she told herself, before looking back to Mark with what she hoped was a blinding smile.

"He's just someone I work with," she explained. "We were on assignment when we were both taken."

"Are you all right? You can't imagine how terrified I've been since you disappeared." Mark's eyes were full of genuine anxiety. "What's really going on, Jenny? What is this place? I never even knew it existed before today."

Jenny took a deep breath. "It's a new facility, part of the coalition's war on terror," she explained, launching into the cover story she'd rehearsed with Lester. "I'm amazed they let you in here."

"They didn't want to," he said. "But once I knew you were safe I just had to see you. I don't understand, Jenny. Why are you in quarantine? What did they do to you? Are you hurt?"

She shook her head. "I'm fine. Really, Mark. They just want to keep an eye on us for a few days."

Mark's gaze drifted to Nick's cubicle again. "And they couldn't find you somewhere private?" He asked.

Jenny was saved from having to reply by the appearance of Lester, flanked by two white-coated doctors wielding clipboards.

"Sir Lester," nodded Mark, a cool look passing his face.

Lester beamed his best smile. "Mark," he said, holding out a hand, which the other man reluctantly shook. "As you can see, Jenny is as radiant as ever. The doctors are extremely pleased. So pleased, in fact…" He turned to one of his companions with a nod.

"We're happy to say that you've got the all clear, Ms Lewis."

Jenny's heart began to thud. "The all clear?" she repeated.

"Does that mean I can take her home?" Mark demanded immediately.

"It does. We can release both Ms Lewis and Professor Cutter right now."

Jenny dropped her hands from the glass and turned. "Nick," she called, "Did you hear that?"

Cutter appeared from this cubicle, crossing towards her. Outside, the ARC staff was already working on opening the hermetic seal. He offered a smile that didn't reach his eyes, looking first at Jenny and then at Mark.

"Great news. I was beginning to think we'd never get out. Mark," he nodded by way of greeting. "It's good to meet you at last. Jenny's told me a lot about you."

Jenny's eyes were fixed on Nick, but he didn't look at her. Mark was saying something, which began to permeate the fog around her mind.

"I'm sure you had something to do with Jenny's safe return – Professor Cutter, was it? For that I'm grateful, but I'm sure you'll understand when I say I hope it's never necessary for her to see you again."

"Mark," she said, "What-?"

"Jenny, if this government can't even protect its civil servants, then there really is something rotten in the State of Britain."

"It wasn't-" she began, but Mark interrupted.

"And since I've been offered the job of the paper's Washington correspondent, I'm hoping you won't ever have to be in this sort of position again…" He was smiling at her, but Jenny's eyes had blurred. Beside her, she felt Nick go very, very still.

"That's… wonderful…" she whispered, haltingly.

"It won't be for a few months yet, but I figure we can get the wedding out of the way, go off on honeymoon, and then start our new lives in America. A whole new start, Jenny. You can forget everything that happened here."

Jenny nodded, smile still plastered across her face as the final seal on the door was opened. She didn't trust herself to speak. She'd been prepared to say goodbye to Nick, to hang up any idea of a relationship between them on a dusty peg somewhere deep inside her heart, to commit herself entirely to Mark once and for all. She just hadn't actually considered the possibility of never seeing him again.

The door opened, and suddenly she was confronted by the solid reality of Mark, who strode in and wrapped his arms around her, face against her neck. She hid her eyes against his strong shoulder, hugging him tightly. They stood like that for long minutes, the insanity of the world whirling in her head.

When Jenny finally pulled away, she turned to see that Nick had already gone.

Xxx

To be continued


	33. Chapter 33

Author's note: Here it is – the last chapter. Thank you so much for sticking with it, and I hope you like how it ends. Ending this feels strange: It's by far the most complete thing I've ever written, and it's _finished_, which is a really wonderful feeling to have. Thank you for letting me achieve that, because without the notes that people have left about the story, I don't think I would have done.

There won't be a sequel to this, though I'm going to edit it (it needs a lot of polishing) and post it on Primeval Archive. But I'm sure something else will occur to me at some point, and I'll be very grateful if you read it when it does.

xxx

The house was quiet for the first time in days. Nick listened to the silence, relieved by it. Since he'd been released from quarantine a week ago, Stephen, Abby and Connor had been with him almost around the clock. Part of it was a desire to celebrate his safe return, it seemed, and part of it was just concern over his wellbeing. Nick appreciated the gesture, and had enjoyed their company. But finally, he'd needed some time to himself. Some space to adjust to being back in his own time, his own place.

He wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge door, staring at the mass of food inside. The previous day Abby had driven them to the supermarket in her ridiculous four-wheel drive, and they'd bought every type of cuisine imaginable. But now, trying to decide on what to have for his first Sunday lunch in over three months, the only thing that he could think of was a ham and cheese toastie.

He picked out some thick slices of honey-cured ham and pulled the cheddar from beneath a pile of other, more exotic, cheeses, dropping both on the table before going in search of bread. For a moment he had to remind himself where the breadbin was. He found it where it had always been, in the utility room that led to the garden.

Nick paused, looking out at the small patch of green that stood to the rear of his house. The seasons had turned since he'd been away, and the oak tree had long since dropped its curled brown leaves. They littered the ground, the remains of the morning's frost turning their edges silver in the low winter sunlight. He decided to make gathering them up his task for the afternoon – if they stayed on the ground for much longer they would turn to mulch and ruin his lawn. The thought of such quiet domesticities almost made him laugh. How quickly the horrors of being trapped in the past had become a strange kind of dream. Once, less than a month ago, he'd been prepared to resign himself to living out the rest of his life as the only man on the planet. Now, here he was, working out how to get back to normality.

He turned back to his lunch, and couldn't help but think of Jenny. Nick wondered where she was at this moment, and tried to push away the uncomfortable image that inevitably surfaced. It was Sunday morning, after all. Where else would she be but with her fiancée, and most likely in bed?

Nick sliced the bread as thinly as he could, mechanically spreading it with butter before layering on the filling and adding a touch of mustard. He was almost done when a potent sense of melancholy overwhelmed him. He sank into on of the chairs, pressing his fingers to his eyes.

_No point dwelling on it,_ he told himself. _She's gone. There's nothing you can do. There was never going to be anything you could do. _

He couldn't have explained, even if he had wanted to verbalise it, how huge the wrench had been to go from seeing her every day to not seeing her at all. Nick hadn't heard a peep from her for a week, though he wasn't surprised by her silence and hadn't expected anything different. Truth be told, he was waiting for the wedding invitation to drop through his letterbox. Abby had already brought the subject up, saying that when she herself had spoken to Jenny, she'd got the impression that plans were being moved forward. Abby hadn't been surprised, given the circumstances, and neither was Nick. He'd seen Stephen watching him as this news was delivered, and buried everything as deep as he could.

Who was he to deny Jenny her happiness? They'd been trapped in an impossible situation, and it had been inevitable that something would come out of their being thrown together. But Nick was old and wise enough to know that it probably wasn't enough to make their dalliance last, even if they'd had opportunity to explore the possibility. Love, contrary to popular opinion, does not conquer all.

Nick stood up again, closing his sandwich and flicking on the grill. This would pass, he knew. It'd take time, but eventually he'd get over it. Like it or not, that was the way life worked. He had, after all, recovered from worse.

The doorbell rang, and its shrill tone made him realise just how silent the house was.

_This place is far too big for one person,_ he thought to himself, as he went to answer the caller. _I should probably sell up, downsize, start again somewhere new…_

He opened the door. The world crashed to a disconcerting halt. Jenny was standing on his doorstep, breath pooling in the cold winter air. Her hair was partially hidden beneath a white wool hat, her coat collar pulled up to her ears, neck encircled by a scarf. Her face was pale and drawn, dark rings circling her anxious eyes.

"Hi," he said, too surprised to smile.

"Hi," she said, eyes dropping to her feet. Her gloved hands were clenched into fists. "I'll go if you'd rather not see me. I just…"

Nick pushed the door wide. "Of course I want to see you. Come in out of the cold."

She slipped past him and stood just inside the door, nervous and unhappy. He wondered if she'd come to hand-deliver an invitation, and squared his shoulders. If that was the case, he should be grateful she came in person, because it obviously hadn't been easy to come at all.

_But that's Jenny,_ he thought in admiration. _More pluck than most Marine's I've met. _

She seemed reluctant to move, or take off her coat, so he headed towards the kitchen to give her space. "I've just put the kettle on," he told her, "can I get you a coffee?"

"That would be great," said the ghost of her voice. He heard her footsteps follow him, as she added, "I'm still trying to make up for the last three months."

He pulled out a chair, smiling at her, "I know what you mean. Caffeine never tasted so good, eh?"

Jenny dropped into the offered chair, and pulled off her hat, but didn't remove her coat or gloves. She didn't say anything else as he made their drinks, and he watched her out of the corner of his eye. Her gaze was fixed on her hands, folded on the table in front of her, and every now and then a small frown would flit over her features. She didn't look happy, or well. Tension was etched on her face and in her shoulders. She looked fragile, and he didn't like it. Nick wondered whether to call her on it or let her talk at her own pace.

The grill pinged, indicating that his forgotten toastie was ready. Nick turned it off, leaving the sandwich where it was.

"I'm sorry," she said with a wince as he put a mug down in front of her, "did I interrupt your lunch?"

He shook his head as he pulled out a chair at the other end of the table, careful to keep the distance he knew she'd prefer. "It's no problem, really. To be honest, at the moment I can't even work out what I want to eat. I've got all this amazing food to hand, and looking at it just makes my mind go blank."

She smiled suddenly, and it lit up the room. "I know what you mean. A couple of nights ago my parents took us out to Brassiere Roux, and the only thing I could think of that I wanted was scrambled eggs. Mark said –" She stopped, abruptly, smile fading, and stared down into her drink.

Silence drifted between them for a few moments as Nick tried to work out what to say. He wanted to tell her it was okay, that he was happy that she was happy. Except that she didn't seem happy, and the last thing he wanted to do was get into the middle of whatever was going on, particularly if it involved her fiancée.

"Jenny," he said gently, at last. "Look. I know things are a bit strange at the moment. And I'm sure it's taking a while for you to adjust – I know that it is for me, and I only have myself to worry about. I'm sure that Mark and your family understand that too."

She lifted the mug to her lips, and he saw her hands shake as she gulped the hot coffee. Her eyes were full of tears.

"They just want everything to go back to normal," Jenny whispered, as she put the mug back down. "They want things to be the way they were. And I can't explain what happened, and no one knows… there's no one… I keep waking up with nightmares, but I have to lie about why. I have to tell them that I'm dreaming about the bomb that knocked the car off the road when they took us…" she reached up to grip her healed shoulder, "…because I can't really tell them why I can't wear the shoulderless wedding dress Mark's mother wanted me to wear. But I keep having dreams of teeth, of jaws pulling me out of bed, and I wake up screaming and I can't tell them, _I can't tell them why_…"

Her words ended in a sob, and Nick wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her there. Instead, he reached out and covered her hand with his own.

"You are going to the ARC counsellor, aren't you?"

She nodded, wiping tears away with a gloved hand. "Yes. And it is helping. But I can't take him with me to America, can I?"

The mention of her intended emigration forced a cold knot into Nick's stomach, but he forced himself to smile. "I hear America has pretty good shrinks."

Jenny smiled a watery smile back. "It'll just be someone else I have to lie to, won't it?"

Nick nodded, heart aching for her. He didn't know what to suggest. What he wanted to tell her, which involved telling her to stuff the wedding, at least until she was better, he did not have the right to voice. He didn't understand Mark, though. Surely it would be better to let Jenny recover at her own pace? Presumably the other man felt that ignoring what had happened in favour of establishing a new normality was the best course of action, but couldn't he see it wasn't working?

"I'm sorry," Jenny said quietly, looking down at his hand.

"What for?"

She offered a half-laugh, glancing up at him through pained eyes. "None of this is your problem. You must think I'm the most selfish woman you've ever met."

"No," he told her, warmly. "I told you, I understand. And you can come to me whenever you need to. I don't want you to think-" He glanced away, trying to frame his next statement appropriately. "I'm your friend, Jenny. I'm always here for you – we all are – if you need us. Wherever in the world you happen to be."

She stared at him. "I never had nightmares when we were in the past," she whispered.

He shrugged. "I guess that's not surprising. Your brain was on constant alert anyway."

Jenny moved her gaze to his hand, still covering hers. "No," she said thickly, "I don't think that was it."

Nick didn't reply, unsure what she meant and unwilling to push to find out. All he wanted to do was hold her, but he knew that it would be far beyond the bounds they'd set. And even if he'd promised to be a friend to her, the fact that he wanted so much to touch her told Nick he couldn't promise the gesture would be entirely platonic on his part.

"Can I-" she started, and stopped before trying again. "Can I see the photograph?"

"The photograph?"

She nodded. "Of you… of you and Claudia. Please?"

His heart skipped a beat. Why would she want to see that?

"Please…" she said again.

Nick nodded, letting go of her hand and standing to retrieve his wallet. He pulled the photograph out, dog-eared now. He held it out to her.

"When I first saw this," said Jenny, looking down at it, "I was horrified."

"I remember," Nick said with a dry smile.

"It just seemed… It was like a huge empty space opened up in my life," she continued, still staring at the image of her not-self. "I couldn't… I couldn't make it fit, unless... It blew everything I took for granted apart."

Nick nodded guiltily. "I should never have shown you. I know that now. It wasn't fair on you."

She shook her head. "No. No, I'm glad you showed me. But it changed everything." She looked up at Nick, shadowed eyes searching his. "And now I wish..." Jenny stopped. "I'm sorry. Everything's just so screwed up. Everything's changed, and I can't change it back."

Nick took her hand again. "Believe me, I know what that feels like. But it'll get better, I promise you. And you've got Mark, and your parents…"

Tears filled her eyes again, spilling down her cheeks. She pulled her hand away from his, holding her fingers to her eyes.

"It's not going to get better," Jenny said eventually, recovering herself. "It's never going to go back to the way it was."

"Jenny…"

"I told Mark I can't marry him."

Nick stared at her. She looked away, face a snapshot of anguish.

"I told him I can't marry him," she said again, "and now everyone is _so_ angry with me. My mother keeps reminding me how he never rested a moment while I was gone, and my father says he can't believe I could do anything so stupid. Mark is angry because his mother has spent so long on the wedding arrangements. I think he imagines it's just a reaction to what he calls "my ordeal" and in a few weeks it'll be back on again. But I can't do it, I can't… I just don't feel the same."

Nick looked away, trying to regain his equilibrium. So she wasn't getting married. It didn't change anything, despite the way his heart was hammering against his rib cage.

"And now I wish I was her," Jenny said brokenly, touching the photograph. "I wish I'd never been born as Jenny Lewis. I wish-"

"Don't say that," Nick said, roughly.

"Why not? You wish I was her, too."

"Not any more," he told her, getting up and crouching beside her chair. "Not any more, Jenny. And Abby, Connor and Stephen? They love you. They love _you_, Jenny. As you are now."

She looked down at him, eyes filling with tears again. "I don't-" she stared, and stopped, blinking.

He took her hand. "You don't what?"

"I don't feel right without you," she whispered.

He stared up at her, and couldn't think of anything to say. She must have taken his silence as rejection, because she pulled her hand away and stood up.

"I'm sorry," she said again, "I'm sorry… I should go."

"_Don't_," said Nick, finding his voice as he stood and reached out a hand to stop her. "Don't go."

Jenny looked at him, and his heart rent in two at the distress he saw there. "I didn't mean to – I didn't come here to ask you –" she said, haltingly. "Why would you want me," she muttered, more to herself than to him, "after everything? I messed you up, and you still risked your life to save me, and I just messed you up again. And I still went back to Mark. I don't just expect to walk back into your life. I just- I'm sorry. This all came out wrong. I'll go-"

Nick crossed the space between them in two steps, pulling her into a tight embrace. She felt frail in his arms, and she trembled against him as he rested his cheek against her hair.

"If there's one thing I'm getting used to," he told her softly, "it's the women I've loved and lost returning at unexpected moments."

Xxx

"I think we're going to need more bags," Jenny told him, as she tied another one shut, stuffed to the brim with leaves.

Nick leaned on the rake, watching her heft it on to the pile they'd already filled. Her soft angora hat was pulled down over her ears, matching scarf and gloves incongruous against the old cast offs he'd given her. His old sweater was at least two sizes too big for her, and the tracksuit bottoms he'd found in his bottom drawer dragged on the ground with every move she made. To his eyes, she'd never looked more beautiful. The pain of earlier had dulled, and a couple of hours spent in his garden had brightened her cheeks.

"I can finish this tomorrow," he said, as she walked back towards him.

"What, leave a job incomplete?" she teased, with a smile that stopped Nick's heart entirely. "Never!"

He pushed the rake away and reached out for her, pulling her into his arms. It was amazing how natural it felt to hold her, how well her body fit against his. Nick wanted to kiss her, but was worried that if he did he wouldn't be able to stop.

"I'm not going to break," she told him, huskily, reading his mind.

"You've been through a lot," he said, "I just don't want to-"

Jenny wrapped an arm around his neck, pulling him down until her lips met his. Her mouth was warm and tasted of coffee. They broke apart, and she smiled at him again, the warmth in her eyes tinged with something hungrier. "Love me," she whispered, "and don't ever stop."

Nick did as he was told.

xxx

Later, he kissed the stars on her shoulder, one by one. He named his own constellation in the universe that was her.

[END]


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